i'm not a kid anymore.

i've been living in a fairytale...of choice...and it's actually not real.

the fairy tale is me. it’s the tale as old as time, my exisiting on this earth. it’s a story i could tell again and again and what i could tell best are the places i’ve gone to, inside of the imagination breeding hope into my life, or the escapes i’ve ventured into avoiding the pain filled realities of life. i’m realizing as i do these things, love, hurt, heal, change, grow, decide. life is not a fairy tale. it’s not a grimm’s tale either. but it is a story. and we choose it. i hate when people say that sometimes. it makes me laugh because truly, i can’t stand when people say we “choose” our life. not always. and especially not at the beginning when we were too young, too innocent, too magical to not be touched by the hardest things we experienced at those tenderheaded, softhearted, openminded existences.

i am saying life is not a fairy tale because i have stayed in situations for so long, i wasn’t able to tell if my life was mine anymore. it shows me something about myself. that i’m brave, and can be burned. that i’m wise, but won’t always be wanted. that i’m loyal, though it won’t always be leveled with others. that i can do hard things. even when i don’t want to anymore. i learned it. we all learned it. but i learned it. deep. inside of my bones, when i carried my mother. when i carried her bones inside of my hands. her flesh. her being. her soul. i carried her and i waded in her waters, and they are the deepest waters i have ever known. i have slid against countertops and waged war on my everything. and i have stayed. stuck. in places that i always had a choice of whether i stayed or went. but it doesn’t feel like a choice when your decision is wrapped up in making sure your mother stays alive.

it’s a painful thing. i don’t actually have anything else to say about it right now, but the words are coming as a i soak up an essence of watermelon kush gummy seeping through my bloodstream. because in this moment, i am somewhere else i chose to be instead of being where i was because staying in a place too long that wasn’t for me anymore wasn’t working anymore. in any way shape or form other than to hold onto who i was when i first arrived there. scared. terrified. and feeling unworthy. and there is something about getting to the end that doesn’t feel like an end, that feels like an out. and you take it because staying in only brings the same thing. again and again. and getting out brings that flow of life that begins to sing not only hum.

anyways. life is not a fairy tale. and i’m looking around loving what it looks like to be in the real world. my, real world.