#i told myself funnily enough on my bday | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

barbieb0y · 10 months

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journey: esse est percipi.

tomorrow's my bday ... crazy. and funnily enough today is the first day of the month safar in the islamic calendar. life is truly strange

today i want to talk about my self-worth and existence and how bumpy of a ride it has been and still is. it's one of the main things i struggle with. it's well. yknow

anyways lets get to it. dw this is the last one lol

i was born. that much is obvious.

when i was younger, obviously i didn't dwell on my existence much. i was a kid, and so all i had to do was play and throw temper tantrums. not that i did the latter - my mom has told me how i was always such a quiet child, and some part of that still rings true now; only i'm no longer a child, although sometimes i feel like one.

i didn't care other kids my age were being sent to tuition or piano classes or being praised for their innate talents. i was content with being simply me, the only extent of me caring being me and my siblings being forced to go to Quran recitation classes, our parents knowing full well we won't ever read it if we just stayed at home.

even when i entered primary school, nobody stood out, and neither did i. if i ever did, it would be because i was a "smart kid", despite there being others who were like me. outside of being a mostly straight A student, i did not matter. and i was grateful for it. i live a normal life with a normal family. i'll grow up to be a normal person, the only thing not normal about that person's life being their job, high-paying and successful.

but then i entered secondary school - a school my mom teaches at. when i was younger and my mom would take me to her school at times, i was amazed by the collection of books the school library had. i thought to myself i want to attend that school no matter what. but by the time i actually enrolled, it was more because having my mom there would make things easy for me; and that i'd get insider knowledge.

that school, as it turns out, is a cluster school of excellence - a high-achieving school, with high-achieving students. i was surrounded by students who weren't only academic geniuses, but multitalented people who seemed to be able to do anything. if they aren't academically-inclined, they would be athletic stars. and i was there, a small existence, with nothing going on for him.

i can't actually get straight As. i can't run fast. i can't play the guitar. i'm not leader material. i can barely talk. and at that moment,

i wondered why i existed when all these amazing people can do the existing for me.

when i stood out at school, it was rather like a sore thumb rather than like an actor standing under the spotlight on stage. i was a teacher's child and a "girl" at that - that alone deserved attention apparently. but i never wanted to be my mom's child or a dating/marriage candidate.

i never wanted to be.

i tried not to stand out. i was the same quiet kid you knew from primary school, who speaks with his grades rather than words - only that my grades seemed to speak profanities. you can tell how that contributed to how i perceived myself.

and then i had to figure out that i'm queer and how nobody else seemed to think the way i do.

it's as if i'm destined to be isolated.

and i've definitely wrote such things in my many, many journals - how i was born a cursed child, my destiny is to be alone and lonely forever, that not even loneliness is my friend. a bunch of theatrics, looking back on it now, but those feelings were real.

unknowingly, i developed an inferiority complex. but it wasn't as if i was unhappy - but i wasn't particularly happy too. i existed simply because my mom told me to and i didn't want to get yelled at. there were the small things in life that made it bearable but ultimately, they end up making me feel small too.

i wish i could say that the thoughts resurface less nowadays but that would be a lie. they're still there, lurking in the corners of my brain, ready to pounce on me the moment i try to function within a society.

"why bother existing when other people can do it for you, and better than you ever could?"

sometimes, i feel like i already don't exist. once you shrink enough, though you have the same volume of matter inside of you, you don't have the same volume outside.

the world doesn't see you so you don't exist.

“to exist is to be perceived.”

“esse est percipi.”

george berkeley had a point when he came up with that argument. it certainly is how i feel about my own "existence".

but birthdays.

the one day to commemorate how many years one has been alive, to say "well done, you've survived life this far", to convince yourself that your parents made a mistake, to ask God why He created you.

birthdays sure do remind me that i exist.

many despise it because they hate the concept of aging and some because they never wanted to live that long.

i never hated birthdays. i like the attention that comes with celebrating one. i like using it as an excuse.

i like it because it makes me feel worthy of this life i was given.

it makes me feel like i deserve gifts and presents and well wishes.

it reminds me that the people around me do perceive me, even if they only perceive what they want to perceive.

i feel whole.

i can feel my essence.

i can feel myself filling space in this big, big universe we're in.

i can feel the matter that makes me me.

i like birthdays.

and tomorrow will be my 19th.

19 years of being. 19 years of existing. 19 years of stumbling and falling and getting back up again and crying. 19 years of having being perceived. 19 years of having always filling up space in a big, big universe. 19 years of always having worth.

"why bother existing when other people can do it for you, and better than you ever could?"

because nobody can exist as me, better than me.

#shut up safar

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