I lost my confidence in 2021
I live for connection. I live for shattering glass tables with my three best friends and a straggler we scooped up in our Uber at 2 AM from the afters. I like holding my friends, like really properly holding them, squeezing the life out of them into me. I like doing dumb shit that’s always deeply funny to me and me alone; I’ve never shied from a walk of shame on a Saturday that’s stretched into a Sunday. I like talking about nothing to new people for hours on end, each one I treat like my own little guinea pig with a reset button, perfectly portraying every type of my personality that I think would most appease them.
Often, I feel most alive when I am not alone.
I fled for freedom, but a pandemic clutched my back, scooped me up, and dropped me halfway between home and what I thought was my new beginning. I’m living in the in-between in a studio that I’m sure is trying to suffocate me.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like a spineless, overly shy bag of bones more often than not lately. I’ve lost every slice of self-confidence.
Just a few weeks ago, I was let out of the shackles of Sydney’s lockdown. I remember it so vividly. I hadn’t really seen anyone in three or so months. I was buzzed, shaving my face listening to DNA by Kendrick Lamar and trying to literally suffocate my pores in Kosas’ Oil Concealer before dipping out for a night of debauchery. Lockdown’s chipped away at a lot, but I’ve never seen it take anything as much as it took my nails. Stumps, I tell you, stumps.
Without anyone’s connection, without the space to sit down, eye to eye, and listen to another, I lost my visibility.
I know the way I’ve been able to endure this pandemic is similar to receiving a gentle tap on the shoulder like when you’ve stepped out of line as a brat-child and your teacher is over heckling with you. I know my privilege. I’ve felt disheartened trying to write during a pandemic. I’m worried this will be twisted, everyone’s cutting each other’s tongues out, and I’ve barely done anything notable with mine.
Writing has always come naturally to me; I haven’t self-submitted a single iPhone note in the last three months. I haven’t written one thing for myself, and I know it’s because I don’t feel confident in myself like I’ve been in the past – confidence is my structure, my elixir, my woo woo Moon Juice. It’s my everything! I had it in oceans, now all I have is a child’s inflatable pool with piss in it. I’ve been trying so hard to make friends in Sydney, and it’s fucking hard. Maybe I am unbearable. But, like, the thought of them reading this mortifies me to the point of heart palpitations – I’ve reworked this ideal version of myself here, I don’t want people seeing the cracks I’ve tried to cover with a lick of cheap paint. I think I spent so much time by myself I went almost insular. At first, I struggled to go out at night unless I was legless before rolling through the door. I don’t quite feel myself anymore, all I did was moan for months about being locked in a room, and now I don’t want to leave.
I, like many of you, have picked up a new pandemic hobby. People have been learning how to bake fuck knows what, starting food and wardrobe rental pages left, right and centre, meditating for weeks on end, flaunting their exhaustive list of pandemic reads. People have been doing a lot and learning even more, and all I’ve been able to pick up is sleep apnea. No pandemic crush, not a toned muscle insight on my snakeskin; I’ve just picked up or, better yet, put down all the confidence I had in my body. If you have or have had sleep apnea, I feel you. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and I feel like I haven’t taken a deep breath in a good 20 seconds. I wake up hot, I wake up scared shitless, I wake up, and for a split second, I wonder if I am genuinely struggling to breathe. This apnea has been haunting me, and sometimes I forget I struggle with it altogether. I’d love to zip it up in a courier bag now that I can visualise some sort of horizon to the pandemic and express ship it back to the bottomless pit of hell where I assume it’s crawled out of.
And the abysmal self-confidence I had in my body has now left the building. See ya later, and you can slam the door right on my flat face on your way out.
And all of this has left me trying to piece together parts of myself that don’t fit anymore. Aspects of my life I’ve always relied on, I had unequivocal trust in, that felt true from the soles of my feet to the tips of my fingers. But maybe that’s what this period is for. Maybe just getting through this really fucked up period of life is enough; being able to walk away from it is the true test of a person’s strength, not what they’ve achieved during it.
And I really do feel like the storm has passed. I wake up lighter. I feel like I can breathe deeper. But, funnily enough, I am still stuck in the in-between. The storm’s passed, but I can’t feel the sunshine on my chest just yet. I’m just slowly but desperately trying to pick up the pieces it’s left in its wake. But the thing is, I’m still kicking. Everything’s that’s happened to us is new; we’ve all walked this terrain without a map, and sometimes it’s been unbearable, it’s been miserable, but you’re still here.
And don’t let anyone take that away from you.
Never forget how this truly, deeply cooked period made you feel but don’t bottle it up as resentment and let it consume you whole. Let your wounds out, let them flower, give them air, talk about what happened. Make space in your life to heal. I sure as shit know I am. I’m seeing a healer. I’m reading fucking Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life. And, well, I am talking to you again. Whenever I’ve spoken to you, opened up, left everything here, I’ve always felt more confident in the following weeks. Because maybe just knowing that you, too, might relate to this weird post-pandemic journey I’m stumbling through – it’s heartening. And I know it’s sad that I need to rely on other people’s validation for my confidence, but isn’t that what community is all about – knowing that at the end of the day, you’re not alone here.
If I’ve learnt anything about this year, it’s how to look forward. In the moments where all I’ve felt like is anything but myself, I’ve found small comforts in knowing that something new is around the corner. The world will keep spinning, and swinging us curveballs, we’ll continue to feel everything and sometimes nothing at all.
