I'm so glad you understand me...
I wrote "What's Mine" in 2019. I was still in school, it was my last semester but everything still felt so far away. I had all of the typical pre-graduation thoughts, "What's next?", "Am I prepared" "why am i still so confused"... completely normal things to think but for me these thoughts felt almost crippling.
I'm getting ready to begin my life and have not one clue what's coming next. At this time, I hadn't grown enough emotionally to rationalize my thoughts/feelings and reach out for a little help. I instead began to isolate and tried my hardest to problem solve on my own.
My experiences felt extremely lonely despite knowing there were hundreds of other people living through these same moments. It truly felt as if no one understood my version of things, just me.
It'd never occurred to me that the reason my world felt like it was caving in was because I was transitioning not only into a new stage of life but my mindset was due for a switch as well. I had been trying to figure out who the hell Angelique was and if I even liked her. If she needed to evolve the way everyone said she would or if evolution was simply just a theory. I continued to resist myself and neglected the part of me that needed to be nurtured.
So here we are 4 years later and I can truly say that I understand my conflicting feelings back then. Was I a bit unreasonable when faced with change? Absolutely, but I didn't know any better.
Change has never been easy for me. Forget the uncomfortability of it, change felt unsettling. I am the true definition of an Earth sign. I'm super set within my routine and I don't like to have decisions made for me or forced upon me.
And for a large portion of my life change had not been gradual or inclusive, it happened within the blink of an eye. The way I was raised didn't leave room for my emotions in the front so I pushed them back and conditioned myself to go with the flow. When I finally reached a point where I had total control and the next change was on me...I didn't know how to handle it.
Now this moment of reflection doesn't mean that I have all of the answers or that I'm a poster child for emotional intelligence but I have come to the understanding that growth is not linear. I got in the way of myself for a very long time before I realized that my life was made for me. I always say that I'm in control of my thoughts, my actions, and their outcomes but being afraid of change, I had never given true life to those words.
I'd never known true control and my definition put me on a path of self-sabotage. I wanted to remain within my universe with my walls up, so unbothered. I wanted to keep my distance and hold myself near. It took years to understand that my mind would never really know peace until I took the time to understand myself and what's mine.