Reflective mood

There are days, like today, when I'm convinced I'll never be the same again. I'll never be able to talk and laugh and be with people the way I used to be. I haven't been bothered to have conversations. Yesterday I was the same. The day before as well. I don't go around and take the face off everyone. No, I haven't really had the energy, the drive or the need to talk, react or interact. Is it because there's still so much going on in my head? But how can that be, if I'm not crying and feeling down? Right now, I'm not really feeling low or down. It's like I have to be either one or the other.. Either down, angry, crying and frustrated or I have to feeling happy, chirpy, bubbly and full of life. But I'm not either of those two. So I start doubting myself..

Will I be that bubbly person again, or has she gone and will never be seen again? I want that happy person back, so badly. If I feel like I'm coming out of the woods, then surely that happy person should be accompanying me. But is she anywhere to be seen? Not at all. Do I still want to have fun like I've never had fun before, which is without boundaries and without restraints? Of course I do. I'd love for nothing more. Am I just not "rebuilt" properly yet? But if my head is clear and if it has been for the past few days now, then shouldn't that mean there's space for laughing and interacting??

Am I trying to take on too much, as usual? Am I making a problem where there isn't one? Is it true what Diann said, weeks and weeks ago that I need time to process these months, deal with them and let everything that's happened sink in? All that I've learned and all I've achieved. All I've been forced to loose but at the same time, all I've been forced to gain. Is this a whole different stage of letting go of Anna, that I've landed in, the past week or 2? The "coming to terms with what has happened-stage" and the "accepting myself as I am-stage".. I seem to think that all is over, but I know it's not even though I'm not that far off, so I'm wanting everything to just fall into place. But it hasn't. Not until it does, will it be over. Everyone keeps on telling me, that I'll know. I'll be able to feel it. I honestly can't believe that.. But maybe I'm wanting too much too soon.

I find myself searching and searching the internet to find what it is I'm wanting. But as I write this I know I'm looking in the wrong place, because I know where all the answers are and I know where I can find what it is I really want. But I'm looking for what it is, in society, I can do to keep on going and learning as I have been the past months. All these ideas and opportunities going round in my head, which is everything, then get me thinking and wondering about what lies ahead. About what I could do and about how I want to live my life. And it excites me, but I can't show it because I don't want to and I can't talk about it because I don't want to.

This brings me to the question..has my personality changed? But surely if I write and it energizes me and I feel enthusiastic and everything here is just me telling the truth and being real about how I'm doing and feeling, then doesn't that mean that there's still a happy person in there, full of life and waiting for adventure? Or am I just fooling myself and does Anna want to ruin it all for me, by making me tell myself this..??

Why can't I just enjoy this feeling of not being here nor there? Why can't this uncertainty of how long this journey will end up taking and the mystery of where I'll be in months to come, excite and energize me? Why not? Is it strange that I want to feel that way? Because that's how I used to always feel whenever I'd be looking ahead and on the verge of starting a new chapter in my life, a new adventure. Back then, the build-up and the waiting wouldn't be painful or torture..it would be like walking on air with butterflies in my stomach or a headrush or a fluttering of the heart.. all of those feelings because of the unknown. Back then, I'd know I'd be leaving, and I'd know where I was going but I wouldn't know what it was going to be like or I wouldn't know what great people I would meet or I wouldn't know what it would feel to live temporarily in that country or that lifestyle. And those were the things that I thrived on. They got me through.

The whole combination of the unknown and the feeling each time as a new chapter in my life was about to start and whenever I was venturing out and starting something fresh and new, would keep me high.. like when I was going to college, to London, to Austria, to Greece, back to Ireland, to Australia.. The only time in my life I didn't feel all those great feelings, was when I was getting a job in Holland when I came back from traveling and when I chose to come back to Arklow to fight Anna. It was like life had stopped and I was never going to do all the things I wanted..

Right at this moment, when I look back over the last 6 months, it overwhelms me. Instead of glorious feelings, I get a lump in my throat, I get a woozy head, I get tears in my eyes, I get a heaviness in my stomach and an aching in my heart. Because I haven't come to terms with any of it. Every day, since I've been back in Arklow, I had to take it as it was, one step at a time because I was terrified of what looking back or looking forward would do to me. But coming out of the "being ill-mode" or the "recovery-mode" means I have to face up to what happened. But at the same time, there are other things going on in my life too. Well, not necessarily.. Only the things I choose to take on, only the things I choose to let into my life and to occupy myself with. But isn't that also a part of coming out of "recovery-mode".. branching out and thinking ahead and wanting to express everything inside of me to the world and engaging with daily life and society again? Surely I'm only doing what I'm capable of, and that's what everybody else is capable of too.. occupying themselves with different things and not being afraid that their brain will go into overdrive after being used for so many different things each day over and over again. All this is normal and your brain is able to cope with all the different things going on.

So aren't I doing okay by being totally focused on every aspect in my life, past, present and future? Isn't this what I need to be doing instead of stressing about not wanting to speak? If I'm being as I want to be, then can't I let go of the fact that I could just as well be living a life of silence in a convent and it wouldn't bother me? Yes I can let that go because it's obviously what I need to give me something to get out of bed for in the morning and feel fine about what's happening and to carry this feeling throughout the day, just to get through.. I need to focus and that's what's got me so quiet and so reflective. So that's all I have to say on the matter for now.. or not actually say, but type..