Reposted due to making some edits because I wrote this real late yesterday c:
Every time I sit down to write something like this I have a moment where I feel like my own body doesn't exist. What use is it to write down thoughts that are already in my own head, right? Journals are pointless. What I say in one second is unlikely to be what I feel in the next, because in this second I'm feeling... I don't know. Maybe just a part of me isn't willing to save these thoughts in case they're found, or misused and misunderstood. Or maybe I just don't want to look back at it and face it myself. No, I know I'm not an easy person. I'm a complicated one. And that's okay. I'd like to think that's okay, but I don't know. I don't need to remind myself that I can be so much of a screw-up, even when I'm trying my hardest to improve myself. Thank the Gods that Rick is a patient man otherwise I don't know where I'd be, but I guess I'm doing this. Being broody, more or less talking to myself on some random scrap of parchment I took from Averick's coloring stack in the hopes that written-Nessya will be able to convince actual-Nessya of... Something.
I'll burn it later, nothing's drawn on it anyway.
Besides, whenever you're in a foul mood, thinking awful things, good things, anything you want to remember, or even forget, the standard advice is to write. Why? I'm still trying to figure it out, but I guess the whole point is just to stop pretending you're some bigger person, and to humble yourself writing your most intimate details on a page worthy of so much more than scrawled words and jumbled thoughts. Maybe there's supposed to be something cathartic, reaching the bottom of a page with your hand smudged black from ink and charcoal, to cement a thought to yourself and prove, somehow, that it's real, you're not crazy, and you're alive, somehow. Just some months ago I would have used these pages as a map for my own head, trying to figure out who I was and what I was doing with my life amidst utter chaos, but now I'm here just because I'm confused. Scared. Overwhelmed. sort of feeling like I'm living someone else's dream. Which is stupid, right? Because this was my dream, and still is my dream, so how could I possibly feel like none of this was meant for me? Maybe I am just crazy. Yet, I've told myself that before at even worse times in my life and here I am, more sure than ever that I'm not crazy. Am I deserving? I don't know.
We've finally reached Lake Town, and while we're only a short while from Dale, it feels like the last few days have been long. Maybe it's because we've finally stopped traveling from dawn till dusk. Maybe it's the events, all the news, and maybe it's just me. I know Rick and I have talked for almost years about this, joked that when we finally started seeking out answers for what was going on that we might get more than we bargained for when we got to Dale, yet now that it's happened I just don't know how to feel about it. Me. Me. Having a kid? Of my own? I avoided the idea for so long because I was terrified. There, I said it. I'm scared. I love Averick more than anything, and 'course I love Rick too, but being a mother? What if I screw up my kid? How did my mother handle me and my brothers - right terrors- all at once? I convinced myself it wasn't for me. I believed that lie for so long because I didn't want to face the possibility of being responsible for something going wrong, or for someone getting hurt or. Stop it these are just excuses of finding out that I really wasn't cut out to do this. It's stupid and childish. I've grown since those thoughts. I wanted this. I really wanted this. I was ready to move on from everything from the Watch. My old relationships. Everything. I started to heal, and I really, really think I'm doing well. That I'm in a much better place now than I was even a year ago. I know I can handle this, and I know I will. I'll love this kid more than anything else.
I'm running out of parchment, damn it.
I think there's a big part of me that's real happy about all of this. Rick's excited beyond belief, and you can already tell that as much as I might be a terror to him, he's going to drive me up the wall with his fretting and concern. Averick we haven't told yet, and obviously, we haven't even had the chance to tell anyone back home, and we won't for potentially weeks, maybe even another month or so, more until we return to Bree. My mother very well might faint and lose yet another bet with my father - they bet on whether or not I'd get married, for goodness sakes - and everyone else? I hate the attention but for something like this I'm almost willing to put up with it because I don't even care. I'm happy. Really happy.
Downright terrified, obviously, which I've already outlined in great detail. There's a rather persistent feeling of inadequacy and incompetence that I've not gotten rid of. Maybe I'll never get rid of it. Wow... This is just a real boost to my self-confidence right now. Go you, Nessya! Aren't you proud? You're getting snarky to yourself and frustrated in your own writing!
It just doesn't feel real, that's it. Like I'm dreaming, just waiting to wake up back in Bree, or in Laketown, or in some random town along the way to realize that none of this was actually happening and I had just gotten my hopes up. Like this is someone else's dream that I'm looking in on, adapting for myself. I almost feel like a stranger. To myself and my own body, which is a thought I can't even really fully explain. Maybe that's it. I'm seeing and being, a part of myself I've never had to be before and now I just have to... Figure it out. Somehow. I still feel like myself. I feel like myself, and yet I don't. I think I'm just going to have to learn who I am- again. Is that the answer? You hear of couples finding out they're going to have kids and they seem to have it all figured out, perfect to the last detail, excited beyond belief and completely confident in everything they're doing. Is it okay not to know? Is it okay to have to figure out this new side of you that you never even really knew existed?
How do you even do that?
I guess it's time to try and figure it out. Somehow.
