Lockdown Journal- Episode 3

How much honesty is too much honesty in friendship? I’ve been thinking a lot about this since the new season (Season 4) of Insecure started. I think we all recognise that best friends Molly and Issa are not being the kindest to each other at the moment, and sometimes the fictional words cut to real life so deeply- but is it possible for honesty to ALWAYS be kind? Sometimes hard truths are just that- hard. I think we’ve built up friendship to be this place where only the highest positivity is allowed. I think truth should be allowed. I think people should be as kind as they can be, but we should allow each other the grace for hard truths to sound…hard.

I think it’s finally dawning on me that this virus might be around for a long long time. There are things I mentally kept thinking I would get round to in a month or two- as this unlikely to be over in a month or two, I’m finding ways to adapt my thinking to just buckling down and assuming that this has many months left to go.

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen this post:

This, from @hollybourneya Pretending hit me so hard, I had to stop reading and go to bed. I've always been a fairly open person, willing to share my experiences to help other people. Over and over again, I kept experiencing people not taking me seriously and it started to get frustrating- especially when it seemed like there was no basis for it- I work hard, I'm trustworthy - I can be serious if the situation calls for it. This sentence and actually, the conversation in the book that led to these words opened my eyes to something that I had been ignoring. If you're always putting your vulnerability in front of everything else, that's all people are going to choose to see- and whilst it may help someone, what do I get out of it? What do I get out of my life being on display as entertainment or as something to judge or as an easy self measure for someone to be able to pat themselves on the back and say "at least I'm doing better" Nothing I'm saying sounds like a bad thing to be- I'm sure people are reading it thinking "what's so wrong with being open?" - it's not so much what's wrong with it? It's "what are the consequences of that level of openness on the rest of my life?" #pretending #hollybourne

21 Likes, 7 Comments - Dami (@whatdamireads) on Instagram: "This, from @hollybourneya Pretending hit me so hard, I had to stop reading and go to bed. I've..."

I’ve mentioned before how much I’ve been able to think and how much clarity I’ve gotten from this experience but this was probably the clearest of them all. I think I’ve always been the kind of person to live life as I want it to be rather than how it is. The problem with that is life is going to keep on treating you as is. Maintaining the fantasy of doing whatever I want with no consequence is just silly. I think as human beings, we ascribe the best intentions to ourselves even when reality doesn’t support it. We all think we are objective and non judgmental and good and that’s not the case the majority of the time. If you keep staying “out of the game” because of some sort of self righteousness, you’re always going to lose by default. It’s a balancing act of choosing to maintain what’s MOST important to you and following societal norms for the rest because life is short.

I’ve also realised lately, how much I’ve missed fashion- it used to be one of the biggest parts of my life and it kind of just disappeared. I cannot wait to sink back into that life, it’s so fun!

Okay, back to editing I go!