Recently, I think more and more about how well I know myself. There’s the easily discernable – I like warm earthy colours, being out in the sun too long gives me headaches, I like reading Harry Potter over and over again.

But then there’s what lies deeper.

Some days I feel purposeful. I wake up and I know what the day will be. I know how I will shape it and it surprises me… feeling this way. Mostly, because I know it doesn’t always feel this way. But I like how it feels. Like my mind suddenly decided to grow up. Like life will be easy now because an inner me finally knows what he wants and what’s right. The feeling passes but maybe one day, it’ll come and stay forever.

At the bookstore, I judge books by how lengthy they are. The longer the better. Not sure when, but a while ago, I subconsciously decided that books must pose a challenge. I push myself and I’d be lying if I said I don’t feel superior when I actually finish it. In the sense, that if I’d picked a smaller book, it wouldn’t be as much of an achievement. Likely comes from my early low self-esteem years. I needed to prove to myself that I was worth the good things I’d been given in life. Didn’t change the outcome of my actions so much, but definitely changed how much work I put in. Something I’ll carry forever I think. I’m reading the Stormlight Archives right now and those books are BIG. But finishing the first one was so fulfilling, like the view at the top of the mountain. So now I’m halfway through the second.

I feel overtly seen somedays and blissfully invisible on others. During university, there were times when I was walking somewhere, and I thought that everyone who drove by was looking at me. They were looking at how I walked, what I was wearing and somehow they knew my insecurities. So I tried to walk as if I belonged. To what… I don’t know. Maybe it was because I didn’t drive back then, but knowing what I know now about how little I ponder about random pedestrians – that was self-imposed judgement. A blurry mental image of being or looking “right” and regardless of what that may be, I did not feel “right”. The days I felt invisible were rare but amazing. Invisible can sound bad – like you’re not seen. I mean untouchable and purposeful. Those days felt like I could do no wrong. That it didn’t matter if someone looked or didn’t. Others’ presence around me was irrelevant. I saw everyone and myself and there was nothing wrong. It wasn’t happiness or bliss; it was relief and silence.

I have this recurring thought of what happens after I have gone to my rest. Of everything I will not be here to see. As a child, it used to terrify me. The fact that the world would go on… without me. That I have known people who lived and are no more. It took me a long time to deal with that. But accepting that inevitability, has shaped my actions and decisions. I make it a point to randomly tell my loved ones, that I appreciate them. I never want those I appreciate to ever doubt if I did, after I’m gone.

There is so much more to me. And I believe it is important to know myself better as time passes.

Do you believe in souls?

I find that knowing myself better – is about being at one with my soul. In a brief existence, with an unknown after, meaning must be found in the during. Every day I live, there is some meaning to be found. And while I have not reached a state where I remember this everyday, I like to think that I’m moving towards it. I picture a day when I am completely at peace with myself. And every day spent arranging myself to get ther, is a day well spent.

I know what it feels like to live in pretence. To act to be someone you are not. Living lies is no way to live and it is regretful that I’ve only discovered this in hindsight. I think of all the time I spent trying to be someone else. But there was some purpose to it all. There can be no light without darkness.

But now there is light. It will flicker. And one day, it will go out.

But till then, there is time in which to understand yourself. Time in which to find more of what matters. Time to carry yourself as you are. Time to stand strong against the winds of lost voices that seek to guide others.

There is time. There is light.

And there is the deep comfort of being warmed by our own light.