How are you? The Truth. (2026 Edit)

Hello and welcome back to another dive into the archives! Today we’re covering a post from 2021- the beginning of 2021 to be exact. I would like to give a brief trigger warning as through this post (especially at the very end) we’ll be discussing heavy topics in regards to religion and religious trauma so if that’s something you aren’t up for I completely understand! As always, protecting your peace should be your priority. Thank you so much for stopping by! Let’s get into it!

P.S. As always the only edits made to the original post are spelling and grammar. 

January 6, 2021

I’ve been trying to figure it out. Why can’t I write lately, what is my problem? I have the answer now. I am going to give you all a heads up we’re about to go into a slightly dark place but a real place. One I feel trapped in.

Enter at your own risk!!!

Mental Illness is not a joke. Chronic Invisible Illnesses are not jokes. Health is not a joke. Spiritual struggle is not a joke. These are not joking matters.

“How are you?”

I can’t answer you honestly at the moment. I know you care and are just being polite but if I say what comes to my mind here’s what I’d say:

I used to be so strong in my faith that someone bullying me didn’t hurt that bad. I used to know for a fact that God loved me and had a glorious amazing plan for me and my family. I never used to dream of walking through the woods crying and asking God why he would do this to me. Never thought I’d have such a foul mouth that the only thoughts were “What’s your f*cking point?” Never thought I would pack all my ex best friends letters up and ask why I’m going through this, why my best friend would do that, why I had to sit in a vets office an get told about a once in a lifetime cancer and make an rough but right decision. Why I had to be sick all the time why I had to be such a f*cking burden why I couldn’t have just disappeared because hey maybe then things would be easier? Why do I have to explain to everyone and get weird looks, loose friends, and still be HERE for everyone? Hiding it pretending I’m not broken inside from the people who left the things I’ve been through the things I’m constantly going through the things I watch my family go through the things I can’t change. Then I say hey God I’m trying and it feels like I can’t cut a break then I remember how much worse it could be and feel bad for feeling how I feel? I WANT TO FEEL ENTITLED TO FEEL THE WAY I FEEL!!! Why can’t God just make it all better? What’ s his end game here? Why am I suffering? Yeah, I know it could be worse. I KNOW. I have thought these things through I know I should be grateful I’m alive but am I living? Am I truly living when I can feel the backslide? I can feel the downfall from coming off a med to help something and I know how long it will take to get back? I also know I am almost 18 and feel like a toddler or an extremely elderly person. I feel abandoned and suffocated. I feel hurt and angry. Sad and lost. So many feelings and most of all? I feel numb but it’s not numb? It’s that feeling of nothing and everything. All of it the good and the bad. So, how am I? I am trying.

I’m tired, confused, hurt and lost. But I’m trying. I’m done with the mask. I’m done being worried if someone is going to think I just want attention, not everyone shares their struggles constant but it doesn’t make it less real. I originally created my first ever blog as a place to vent and write and be myself yet I never truly allowed my real self to be there fully. When I began this one back in August, I promised myself that I would stop hiding parts of myself that I would be me completely. No screen name, no sensors just me. Sometimes that means we go down a dark path but it’s a real path.

I hope you all enjoyed this post. Sorry it’s a bit sad but let’s be real loves its relatable. Anyways as always until next time stay safe 💝💚💙🥀

Back to the present

I must say, what an ominous title! Bravo younger me. I know you were trying to be serious and everything but I as your current self cannot take this as anything other than sarcasm and sassness at it’s finest. Also one hell of a trigger warning babe! 

To the contra everything is a joke if you’re the one living it and dark humor is your coping mechanism. What happened to Elegant yet Edgy? 

Some context to that question though, the one that started this whole post to begin with. My friend had asked me the dreaded question. An innocent question but it stirred something in me. Triggered me. He asked how I was. We hadn’t talked in a while. I lied to him. I can’t remember what I said but I know I lied. And I suppose that the desire to be honest with him and everyone but more importantly myself. The need to be seen… well that’s what sparked this post in that moment of time. 

But that’s just how I see it when I put myself back in younger me’s shoes. Ha funny because I actually still have the shoes I wore in 2021. Honestly, most of my shoes are ages old – that sounds gross as hell but they’re well kept and quite comfy. Though I am due for new boots because my daily wears are glued together. I don’t know why I’ve told you this but it shows how attached to inanimate objects I am and how attached to staples in my wardrobe I get. Which has LITERALLY NOTHING to do with this post but hey, fun side bar.

Anyway, putting myself back in younger me’s shoes aside, if I look back at this post through my – please hold. *Putting my glasses on* ah that’s better. Through my own eyes. Through older Hails’ eyes if you will, with all the knowledge she has. Everything I know now that I didn’t back then. 

So, looking back, all those emotions that messy entanglement of feelings and thoughts it could all tie into the start of me forging my own path spiritually and in life but especially spiritually. Breaking from that mold that I’d grown up in. The one I’d always sat so quaintly in, until it wasn’t so comfortable anymore. I find it rather humorous now, that I can see it so clearly the shift in who I was, to who I was becoming and hell I can tell you when the doubt was planted and when the questions started and when my mind began to struggle with the ideals. But it all piled into a big mess until it hit this point where I finally started to accept it and understand that it was okay to have questions and doubts and have to find our own way. 

Now, something that’s always been a huge part of my writing and that I’ve never hidden or tried to keep secret was that I was a pastors daughter. This has been such a huge piece of me. Who I was, to who I am and how I view the world and where some – a lot of my journey comes from. I personally found a lot of comfort in the church and god as a child. The teachings of the word I suppose. Though as a preteen and adolescent I had a lot of struggles which I went on to share on my site a lot. Especially as a teenager and even now as a young woman, I have struggled and continue  a lot with Religion and Spirituality. 

With that being said if you don’t mind I’d like to take the long way around to get to a point and share a story with you? 

Still here? Okay. 

As a child one of the biblical figures I found fascinating was Job. If you aren’t familiar heres the lowdown. He was so faithful that the devil wanted to test him, god gave the devil permission to test him because essentially it was a challenge to the devil. He believed whole heartedly that he could get Job’s soul. Whereas god knew that Job would stay true. So, god, ‘lifts the hedge’. I believe this is where the term hedge of protection comes from but don’t quote me on it. Anyway, god lifts the hedge and gives the devil free range saying he could do everything except taking Job’s life (I believe – again please don’t quote me on any of this I’m going off memory. He literally has a whole book in the bible and there’s so much more). So, the devil gets to work destroying Job’s life in the hopes of taking his soul. Job loses everything his family, his home everything he had, he’s covered in boils from head to toe and his wife tells him to curse god and die. She was just trying to help, sick of him suffering. We could have a discussion about her on her own another day but that’s not the point. Anyway, he loses everything, including her, never curses god. Never dies. Keeps the faith and in the end he’s rewarded ten fold. 

Job is the pinnacle of faithful. He’s the ideal christian. He withstood the trial and was rewarded. Often used as a reason we should all hold out. Stay true. He still intrigues me. A case study if you will. But there’s someone else in the bible who fascinated me and I related to for years and who fits the theme of that post near perfectly. I’m sure most of you (especially if you grew up in the church or asking questions know his name) Doubting Thomas. Or just Thomas. The disciple who needed proof of Jesus, raising from the dead. The pinnacle of humanity. Though deemed doubtful and unfaithful because he needed to see to believe. (Personal Opinion)

Growing up in church or being in church in general you’re expected to be like Job unwavering. Faithful and loyal to the end. While human nature is to have us living like Thomas. Questioning, needing evidence and proof. Needing to touch the scars to know it really happened. This post was my inner “doubting” Thomas being given a moment to surface. This post was truly the end of an era for me and the mark of me truly embracing the path of which I walk today. Still a young woman with faith and beliefs but one with more branches and stronger roots.