What God Gave Me

The Moon and the Sun, which controls my planet and self so much more than I'll ever understand.

A pair of eyes, granting me the sight of truth and clarity.

A nose that inhales the sweet aromas, and also alerts me of fires or toxins luring in the air.

A mouth, that sanctions me kisses, taste, and the ability to vocally express my inner self.

Two ears, with which I can listen to my peers, sweet melodies, and dangers further ahead.

God granted me two arms, which have allowed me to embrace my loved ones, fight, carry and create.

My two tall legs, though placed crookedly, allow me to take wide strides around the world.

A heartbeat, that beats in peace or races in adrenaline.

My brain, which not only stores my memories but constant changing knowledge. I'm most grateful for my brain because my thoughts have given me more than what I have experienced.

My emotions, whether on the positive end or negative, they are true to me and I'm grateful I can express them as I do.

Water and fire. I take both of these elements, especially water, for granted far too often. I use them everyday.

God gave me doubt, as well as certainty. These traits have allowed me to always remain curious and alert, but also grounded in confident.

I thank God for the heartbreaks and love I've experienced, as those imbalanced experiences have shaped me to be who I am now.

I thank God for the environment that was given, with all the resources it's provided despite how our humanity has treated it.

God has shown me community, thanks to the people that were put into my life.

At the same time, God has shown me individuality and independence, because without it I wouldn't have been able to come lose from the chains that held me down and away from myself.

Most importantly though, God gave me the freedom to explore and shape my choices, on how to live my life. It took me 22 years to realize that.

Trust is a Risk

Trust is at your own risk.

When you try someone else's food, you trust that it's not poisonous.

You gotta trust that nobody's gonna pour a bottle of bleach in your clothes that you're washing at a laundromat.

Whenever you enter your address on an application or order, you gotta trust that nobody's gonna use that info to track you down and pull up to your home.

I could list countless examples, and I know there's a countless amount of people who could do the same.

I believe that with the more ways people would betray one another and harm each other, trust became more rare, and sensibly so. I've experienced and observed a lot of instances that made my distrust in others grow. Everybody has. I also believe that when you grow up in a toxic environment for too long, your distrust can lead to paranoia.

Throughout everything I've observed and experienced, I'm grateful and surprised that I have as much of trust left in people as I do. I think that's mainly because I've come across a lot of genuine people who have made it easy to trust, and for them I will always be grateful. However, I also have a very large portion of distrust in people. I see my distrust in people as bittersweet because; on one hand, I think I've been able to avoid a lot of dangerous moments before they would happen; on the other hand, I tend to misinterpret certain instances for something they're not.

I notice that a lot of strangers, especially when they're men, have a hard time understanding my distrust, and a lot of times I feel like they're too inviting (which makes me distrust them even more). I've had some men invite me over to their house on the first meet up, and all I could think of is, "what makes you so sure I wouldn't try some shit?" I think that way, not because I would actually try some shit, but because from their perspective, they don't know me how I know me.

I then realize that they may never had the need to feel or think that way, so that's probably why they don't understand.

Trust is needed in everything. Especially in relationships with other people. And as important as it is to trust people, it's also important that people trust you. I had to gain the trust of all of my loved ones in a different way and at a different pace, because each of them had different distrusts.

Trust is hard to maintain and easy to break, and I know I've broken the trust of some people before, so I try my best to avoid from breaking it again. Because I understand how important and relieving it is to be able to trust and confide in somebody. Because when the trust is there, you can be open and vulnerable, and that's an important thing to experience. It's a beautiful thing when people are open and vulnerable around you because you see the full version of them (sometimes though, people's true self may not be appeasing to you). I feel very honored when people trust in me, especially when I trust in them. I pray that everyone has someone they can trust and confide in.

Overthinking

I think that overthinking things can be just as harmful as doing things impulsively. I feel like with doing things on an impulse, you run into the consequence of doing something you may regret or get a negative reaction afterwards. Then again, the outcome could be exactly as you had hoped for and you feel fulfilled afterwards. With overthinking, you have the benefit of analyzing the outcomes of a situation, but you have the consequence of thinking about a bunch of outcomes that may never occur, and in turn your fear of any of those outcomes may stop you from doing what you wanted altogether.

Though I have a lot of spurts of doing shit impulsively, I tend to overthink a lot more. I try to think of all situations, so sometimes I feel like I’m two or more different people discussing one topic. The problem with overthinking for me is that it’s caused my mind to wander like an intersection. Each thought is a car, and since all of them want to go at once and neither is sure which to go first, the thoughts stop moving altogether (to prevent an accident). Sometimes I also overthink so much I go into a rabbit role. I’ve actually started about five different think pieces since I’ve been writing this paragraph. It also takes me a long time to write because I really want to make sure that everything I say is exactly what I mean. The bittersweet outcome of overthinking for me is that I’ve thought about very extreme hypotheticals that led me to a dark mindset for a time. Now that certain hypotheticals have actually occurred, I’ve handled them very calmly because I’m already over the panic. But it’s also raised my suspicion in some instances where it shouldn’t have.