Find Love Together – Logan Briana

I’ve never gone through life thinking I was going to get old since most of my family never did. I always thought I would be this young person forever. I am still young, especially depending on who you are talking to. I am also no longer a freshly new adult.

I have heard that trauma can change your face. Especially after you have begun to heal and process trauma.

I have noticed that I don’t particularly look older, but more mature. Yes, I transitioned into my late 20s. I also did a lot of healing in the recent years. I think my face reflects that somehow.

A part of me has been chasing my childhood for years. It was like a flip of a switch and my childhood was forever gone. I remember the child who still had hope that her mom was going to get better. I thought the orthodontic appointments I had to go with my aunt instead were going to be the hard part. Or whether I was going to play softball for the fifth year or officially switch over to lacrosse. I would maybe actually be able to play my flute instead of missing every practice to go visit my mom in the hospital. All of these things were what I thought I was going to have to get through. Not the death of the person I loved the most.

I thought I was going to stay in my childhood house forever. I was so close to being a fifth grader, which at my school you finally got to wrap a pole with ribbon for May Day. That was the coolest thing ever to me. I had been waiting for that since kindergarten. I was finally going to be in middle school to then come to Indiana where sixth grade is part of elementary. I had to do another year in elementary after being so excited to be a middle schooler.

These little things but so big at the time.

I shut down after my mom. Time went on but I didn’t. Since I had permanently lost my childhood, I looked forward to getting older. The older I got, the more distant it got from my mom. In ways that healed me.

I remember my mom but at the same time, I don’t. Not in the ways others do. People will talk about her but most of the time I can’t relate.

Life is full of stages. Those stages look different for each person.

I remember listening to the song “7 Years” by Lukas Graham and he talks about being 20 years old and then soon being 30 years old. I was 20 when the song came out relating to that part and now I am closer to being 30 years old and it doesn’t feel real.

It doesn’t feel real that I am as close to 30 as I am. I’ve heard that people enjoy their 30s more than their 20s. I can believe that. Being in your 20s can be so confusing. You are navigating parts of life that are new while still finding yourself. Society makes it if you aren’t “successful” during this time it’s too late. You get to a point where all of your friends are in different stages of life than you, whether it be marriage, having children, traveling, etc. Some of those things you might not even want but society says those are the things you need to accomplish to be successful.

I get asked often about what I want to do in life. I say I don’t know or something that I don’t hate but at the same time doesn’t give me too much financial worry. I think for so long my main goal in life was to not be in pain. To survive the trauma.

Some of the things I wanted to do for years are not part of my path anymore. I have to deal with that. I don’t like to admit what I want to others because it opens the door for their opinions. So much of what I have wanted has been taken away so a lot of the time I deny myself what I want.

Recently, I have been asking myself, “Do I hate this or is the pain telling me I don’t like it?”

There are many things that I love but have become painful. I have had to determine if I love them enough to push through the pain and triggers and try to heal those parts.

Something as little as Grey’s Anatomy. I was rewatching it with my aunt (her first time) when she died. That show is so intertwined with my emotions to begin with but it also puts me back to that time when she was in the hospital dying. I haven’t fully been able to rewatch it in seven years, which if you know me I am an avid show repeater.

Tights. I love wearing tights but I couldn’t for a long time because it was intertwined with a negative experience. I had to deal with the thoughts. Those thoughts still come but not as often and not as strongly.

I was a media communication major (amongst many others) and that major was the one that I enjoyed and felt most myself with. It is the thing that gives me a lot of pain as well. I thought, would I be able to enjoy that world if I didn’t do it where I am now? Would a new location and new people help diminish the pain and give me the love I once had for that world?

I have been working on surrounding myself and doing what makes me happy. Even if those things might not at all go together. I look at the things on my bookshelf and see the history of those things. They represent different parts of my life. I have a picture of my aunt and mom and they are probably around the age I am now. There’s a photo of my mom and me in a frame that is about as old as that picture. I have my poetry books that represent where I was with my trauma when I got each book. I gave away a plant to my friend years ago because it wasn’t growing fast enough for me (for it to get so big with my friend). She propagated it and I recently got a part of it back. A full circle. Little things such as coffee sleeves from coffee shops I have kept. The media pass from the NAIA Track & Field Championship I worked in May. The newest part of my life is BTS. So I have my little BTS collection. There are other random things. Journals. A 3D-printed ghost. My favorite Criminal Minds quote. A sudoku book from 2005. They all have a story. They are parts of my life that meant enough to display.

I will occasionally see the things that have made it through the many moves and purges. What about those things made them so special to survive the journey?

I have gone through many lives in my lifetime. I have evolved but those things must have been a part of me that can’t be changed. Those are the things that I must really love and want to embrace. It makes me want to know why.

I might be getting “old.” I don’t have to be carded for things where I look older than the minimum age. I can’t always pass for the ages I once did. But I have all of these stories. All of this history. Things I have overcome. Things that only come with getting older.

There is more room for pain with time. There is so much more beyond that pain. I am thankful I get to witness that.

I’m thankful for my years spent with this family, for everything we shared, every chance we had to grow. I’ll take the best of them with me and lead by their example wherever I go. A friend told me to be honest with you, so here it goes. This isn’t what I want, but I’ll take the high road. Maybe it’s because I look at everything as a lesson, or because I don’t want to walk around angry, or maybe it’s because I finally understand. There are things we don’t want to happen, but have to accept. Things we don’t want to know, but have to learn. And people we can’t live without, but have to let go.

Criminal Minds Season 6 Episode 2 – JJ