How are we alike? How are we different? Do you ever feel like no matter how much you try to explain yourself to the ones you love, they’ll never actually understand you? I have a decent handful of people in my life that I love dearly, but really only a few that I feel confident truly connected to, like we “get” each other equally. That’s not to say that I don’t listen and empathize with the others with whom I’m close, just that it’s different. There are people that we love because their borders blur with ours, and those that we love because we have to hop over fences to get to hang out with them. There’s a certain amount of attraction in both kinds of friends, but the effortless ones are priceless when you’re down on energy, and can’t bother climbing a fence to find the shoulder you need to cry on. Of course, sometimes we have friends who initially had fences, but we’ve taken bolt cutters or sledgehammers or a shovel along so many times that now it’s a lot easier to get through. And maybe I’m just not remembering things well enough. Maybe all of the people I love had fences, and the amount of effort it took to get through is what makes us feel borderless now. I don’t know. Do you?

At any rate, I’m thinking about this because I’m feeling weighed down today. I’ve spent the last two days avoiding throwing things out, and replacing the intended activity of purging home goods with bingeing on comestibles. But the eating came with a certain amount of soul-searching, and I figured out some things that I hadn’t known before. Namely, that it’s time to get rid of all of the things that are still surrounding me from my old relationships. It’s time to get rid of the girl that I’m not, to strip down, to build back up.

I’ve made so many life choices based on what I think other people want from me. It’s why I have a hard time talking on the phone, going in to work, keeping an exercise schedule. I HATE that I feel pressured into all of these things. It often feels like my life is not mine to control. I don’t want to live like that anymore. Part of finding that solid, delectable core of Anna (and yes, I’m fairly certain that “delectable” is entirely the right word) is scraping away all of the layers of bullshit that I’ve imposed on myself over the years to try to be more attractive to people that I wanted to like me. And part of it is getting rid of things that weren’t my choices, like furniture that I picked as part of a compromise, or dishes that I’ve kept just because I felt like other people would judge me if I had less pieces in my cupboard, or whatever. This life is mine. I’m tired of drowning in it. I’m tired of the weight of all of these emotional cinderblocks tied to my ankles.