Project Paper Birds

The Beauty of Still Being Here

This was originally posted to the Paper Birds Instagram on July 23rd:

This felt very Paper Birds coded. Well, maybe not the film per say, but the journey it was inspired by. 

It’s such a weirdly beautiful thing to be alive at 24 when I didn’t even think I’d make it past 18. That’s not to say it’s been bliss. In fact, this post was born from a quiet ache in my chest today. But the past half year or so, I’ve been having what feels like growth spurts in my brain (that’s a funny bit of imagery). I feel like I’m going through one now, and even though this summer has been comedically bad, like “REF, DO SOMETHING!!” bad, I’ve felt a weird kinship with this unseen, benevolent presence. Or as my therapist, Abbie and I call it, “The BP”. I’ve been able to hold pain and hope in the same breath without even really trying to, which has been encouraging. 

The other day while discussing PB, someone revealed they had a friend take their own life. I can’t imagine how painful that must be, and I hope I never do. Though silently, PB is inextricably intertwined with suicide, and I suppose it has to be: while I began EMDR to treat PTSD specifically, it quickly devolved to everything. Mediating my parents fights at 10. My half-hearted attempt to OD at 14. The nightmares that tormented me at 20. Now at 24, with over two years of trauma therapy under my belt, my inner world is much more peaceful, albeit imperfect. 

In that same conversation, this person asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and I didn’t know how to wrap that all up in a way that explained it was WHY I didn’t know. What I did manage to express was that I spent the majority of my professional life operating from a place of survival—effective, but unsustainable. Now that I don’t want to die, I’m still making sense of how I want to live (this has been quite a nuisance actually, to the point I’m now slated to be tested for ADHD—shocker, I know). But there is something I am increasingly confident in: I want to be a grounding presence. I want the mere way in which I choose to exist in the world to assure others that it can be ok, that there is hope. While the film doesn’t have time to capture this in-depth, that is my wish for the second half.