This is a selfish post. It’s about me. If you have traipsed in here hoping to find yourself, then maybe you will, in my idiosyncrasies. Or maybe you’ll scoff at my foolish words. Maybe. One of my favourite words. Regardless, this is a beautiful selfish post, if I say so myself.

I have been practising the art of letting go. “The art of losing isn’t hard to master,” I’m told. Not quite the same thing, yet not quite dissimilar. So, I went ahead and lost toxicity. I walked away from ugly relationships that couldn’t be mended. I walked away from unhappy places, from candles that would no longer burn. Things we do to preserve our (in)sanity…

In the process, I realised I had unknowingly, subconsciously foregone my compulsion. I, the list-maker, had not drawn up a satisfactory list in a long while. I, the aspiring writer, had not written as if my life depended on that pen scratching across the paper while I secretly admired my eccentric handwriting. I, the compulsive reader, had not read for pleasure, and was irrationally lashing out in angst at the fictional characters who felt more miserable than me.

My universe has become colourless.
I need the fireworks back.

Being compulsive makes my madness feel explosive, it makes me feel alive and out of breath. It makes me a knower of things. It makes me roll around in the sand and splash in the water.

Today, I choose to go back to who I was.
I choose to love trees with wide-eyed wonder,
To read with happy thoughts,
I choose to discover something new,
To never let go of the madness that drives me.