Back On The Horse (Trying Again)

On flying too close to the sun...

Dear Day Seventeen,

You are also the three hundred and fifth day, and as both, you have been many things to me. Mostly, you’ve been a reminder of the shame that covers me like a thick wool blanket. You’re trapped inside the beads of sweat, clawing at my skin, inhibited by the shield of my ego. 

I am ashamed that I have returned to this world unscathed as much as I’m ashamed that when faced with the sun, I burned. A tale as old as time, and yet I still thought I would be different! There’s a part of me that always says I’ll be the first to figure out a way to circumvent obstacles so many have failed to avoid before. So much of this has been born of the belief that I am different. 

I’m too young, I’ve been through too much, I am far too weak. On January 28th, 2025, the first day, I made an ill-fated promise. “I will face this challenge as a linear process, climbing from my high bottom to the top of the mountain, and when I reach the top, I’ll find another mountain.” Yet alas, it appears the journey is ongoing. It’s a spiral. I keep returning to the same pitfalls. I continue to take my foot off the gas when I feel afraid. 

The sun still rises, I will too.

Admittedly, I began this journey to show the world I could change, with no regard for how I felt. I was tired of being a mess. I was sick of crying. Sick of whining about my problems and the physical evidence of my slow death. I grew bored of the highs and lows, and tired of fighting. I didn’t like the way my face puffed up or how my lips cracked under the pressure. I look different now, on the outside, and my insides have changed, too. They just have further to go. It’s cleaning house, this process. Cleaning a home that has never been properly maintained. Things slip through the cracks in a place like that, and eventually they must be dealt with, right? Sometimes I get damn tired of dealing. 

Am I grateful for all that I’ve learned this year? I suppose. Have I truly learned to let go? Of that, I’m not so sure. Because I got all that I wanted, and it still wasn’t enough. 

I failed to understand the point. It was never about achievement. It was about learning to be at peace with myself. Learning to be at peace with others. It was about seeing that fluttering, gaping hole in the centre of my stomach as something other than an infallible deficiency in my humanity… to see it, instead, as a sign that I am alive. 

I have no choice. I have to accept slips as part of the process. I have to be humble enough to admit that I failed, and brave enough to try again. I no longer have the gift of desperation, but I do believe I’ve been beaten down enough to submit.  

Tomorrow may not bring sunshine, and it might not bring lasting change, but all I ask is that it brings perspective. 

I will not give up on myself or the hope that I belong. I will find my place and my way back. No matter how long it takes. 

So, I’ll hold that same old idea close: “with destruction comes renovation”, and I’ll pray that next time, the landing will be softer. 

Gratefully

(sort of),

Charlotte