What happened to me...?

I'm sitting in the Forest Sciences Building at UBC, it's 8 am. It's been a foggy morning (which I guess is not surprising because it's been foggy for the last two weeks).

I'm meant to be doing homework, but instead I navigate my little paw-shaped mouse to a bookmarked tab labelled 'blog'. (Side note: why am I always writing when I am meant to be studying?? Okay, but to be fair, most of my time is spent studying.)

I'm reading a post that I wrote in 2022, and although it's written in a rather clunky fashion, I find this excerpt:

"Pain. The concept of pain is so odd, yet without it, how do we know IF and WHEN we feel? Pain invokes the feeling of 'hurt' because your body WANTS to let it go. To let it OUT. Yet, the tighter you hold, the more it hurts. To what extent will you value the 'comfort' and 'stability' of that pain over uncomfortable, but NECESSARY growth? It's hard to move on and let go when you've superglued yourself to the past. And I don't think it's a matter of getting new, unglued feet... but figuring out how and why you did that."

I wrote this in April 2022 when I was probably 17. I'm surprised I wrote this then because I feel like I couldn't write like this now. I feel like I used to be so creative, and I feel like I've really lost that. I don't have that same source to draw from anymore. I used to feel so much more pain and emptiness. Although it made for good writing, it was not a good life I was living.

Here's some more examples:

"drowning myself with thoughts has never been something I've found fun, yet it's all I've done in my eighteen years [under] the sun. because floating in misery is better than drowning in reality" (part of a poem about how I've always hated the deep end of swimming pools)

"I wish chem 12 taught me how to balance the chemicals in my brain."

"ever since I got my license / I lost my drive / like the gears in my car keep shifting / but the ones in my head are rusting" (slashes represent line breaks)

This is a poem I wrote in my first year of university called 'Goldfish #3006'

"The goldfish sits in a tiny glass enclosure,

stacked above,

below,

and beside

the other tanks of

other goldfish.

I stared at it.

and

It stared back.

Aimlessly,

it swam back and forth.

The school

of fish across the aisle

hurry to reach

the other side

of the glass tank

But the golden dumpling

just stayed on top

of the water

boiling,

floating,

cooked.

So I took the thing

in the clear film,

in the so-called 'bag'.

I took it

home.

And I stared at the goldfish,

but this time

it didn't stare back."

This girl was not okay....

Ever since Christ extended His gift of free grace to me, I've (thankfully) lost the pain that I used to draw upon for all my writing. I'm not very good at writing joyful things as I used to solely write very angsty teenage girl stuff... but He has given me much to be grateful for! (And there is much to mourn for as a Christian as well, so I don't need to stop my sad writing. I think I just want to pivot more towards praising the Lord!)

It's been a bit of a struggle to find my artistic side. I haven't been devoting much time to finding creativity in my new source, in The Source, Jesus Christ! So I pray that He will help me, that my writing and art will be even better than before, because now I'm doing it for Him. He's healed me from things I spent years in therapy trying to fix, and He didn't charge me $145 per hour to do so.

I'm looking forward to finding more of myself in Him, and if He hasn't already, I hope that He will soften your heart and open your eyes so that you are able to do the same.

With love,

Nicole