the bear

i’ve been showing up every day trying to make something out of the wreckage. that’s what it feels like sometimes — like i’m rebuilding a place that burned down with my name still spray-painted on the wall. it’s not just about the work it’s about the weight behind it. the voices in my head saying “you should be further” or “this isn’t enough” or worse, “you’re not enough.” no one talks about how loud that gets when everything around you finally starts looking like it’s coming together.

people see the surface — they see promotion, progress, maybe even confidence. but they don’t see the nights where your mind won’t stop racing, where every mistake you’ve ever made starts playing on loop, louder than your wins. they don’t see you staring at the clock at 2 am, dissecting a conversation you had ten hours ago wondering if you handled it right. they don’t feel how heavy it gets when the bar you set for yourself keeps getting higher, & you don’t even know if you’re chasing growth or punishing yourself anymore.

i carry a lot of pressure. not from anyone else, but from me. from what i expect, from what i refuse to settle for. i want to be excellent. i want to build something real. but there are days where i wonder if it’s coming from a place of passion or if it’s coming from fear — fear of slipping back into the version of me that was lost, or broke, or quiet when he should’ve spoken. i’ve been him before & i swore i wouldn’t go back.

but you still feel him some days. in the doubt. in the silence after a long shift. in the way your body tenses up when something goes wrong. you fight him with routine with discipline with drowning yourself in the work. you try to find control in chaos because you couldn’t control the things that shaped you. & maybe that’s okay maybe it’s not about escaping your demons but learning how to cook with them in the kitchen without letting them burn the whole place down.

i don’t know if i’m doing it right. i don’t know if i’ll ever feel fully healed or fully seen. but i show up. i care. i try to give a shit even when giving a shit hurts. & maybe that’s what it means to fight through it — not to be perfect, but to keep showing up when you’d rather disappear. to keep building, even when all you ever learned growing up was how to survive the collapse. maybe i’m not building a dream. maybe i’m just trying to prove i deserved better than before.

-rl.