Welcome to Seb’s

Hello, lovely readers,

I come today with an answer I’ve been looking for. Buckle up.

So lately, I’ve been having trouble sleeping and eating. And I don’t mean that lightly. I mean I spent two full weeks with no more than 2 to 3 hours of sleep a day. I mean my appetite is blocked like someone went in and built a dam in my chest and nothing, not even my favorite foods, could get through. I just can’t eat. That’s all I can say. I force myself to it at times, only not to pass out. That’s the level we’re talking about.

And I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know why I was feeling this way. I just knew I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t myself. Not even a version of myself. So, like always, I blamed it on burnout. Which wasn’t wrong. I know I’ve been exhausted. But now I know that wasn’t the whole truth.

Because today something happened. And it gave me clarity. So much clarity. The kind that doesn’t soothe you right away. The kind that hits like a cold slap to the face. The kind that doesn’t fix anything but at least gives you a name for the monster in the room.

For the past six months, I have been carrying something. A weight. A pressure. A presence inside of me that I kept pretending didn’t exist. Anger. I have been angry. And not just a little annoyed or vaguely hurt. I mean deeply, heavily, consistently angry. (this has become a cycle in my life, this anger with no place to go, and I see it now).

It would try to creep up sometimes and I would feel it, just a little, and immediately push it back down. Tell myself I’m not that person. That I don’t hold grudges. That I let things go. But I wasn’t letting it go. I was letting it fester. It would come out on my family and friends, and for a while, I accepted that this is just who I am now. My friend jokes that I need anger management, and for the past 2 weeks, I actually considered it. 

Because I have never been a vengeful person. Truly. I don’t like conflict. I like peace. I like understanding people and giving them the benefit of the doubt. And for a while, by the way, I hated that about myself. I thought I was too soft. Too forgiving. Too understanding. Too naive. But lately I’ve learned that if I’m not that, I’m not anything. And I am not who I’m supposed to be.

So imagine what it felt like, a couple of months ago, when I caught myself telling a friend how badly I wanted to hurt someone. And I didn’t say it jokingly. I meant it. Genuinely. Deeply. I wanted to hurt them in the exact way they hurt me. I wanted them to feel it. And my friend, who’s older than me, “wiser” than me, and emotionally solid in a way that I envy, tried to talk me out of it. Tried to convince me how this wasn’t the right way to deal with it. But at the time, I didn’t care. I remember responding with full honesty, “I know I won’t rest until I’ve hurt them.” 

“It’s not fair,” I told my friend, “how come it’s okay for them to hurt me LIKE THIS? But it’s not the right thing for me to do it too?”

Because they hurt me. Worse than anyone ever has. Worse than any breakup or loss or friendship fall-out I’ve ever had. Like I was a ghost in their world and they had no intention of turning around to see if I was still there. And that kind of pain doesn’t scream at you. It sits quietly in your bones and waits for the right moment to turn your whole body into a bruise. It’s abandonment. 

But here’s the part that confused me. Because for a long while, I genuinely thought I had moved on. It wasn’t something that consumed my days or occupied a big chunk of mind. It would just show up every couple of weeks like a shadow in the corner of my room. I’d notice it. Glance at it. Then move on. 

Until recently. In the past month, this person’s presence in my mind has become louder. Like knocking. Constant knocking. Knocking and knocking and knocking until I couldn’t hear anything else. And I kept asking myself why. Why is this back? Why am I thinking about this again? Why does this still live in me? HOW?

I didn’t have an answer. But I allowed the thoughts anyway. I surrendered to them, not because I wanted to, but because I was too tired to fight them anymore. And that made the monster stronger. That made the bitterness more visible.

I became grumpy. Cold. Sharp. Tired. Disconnected. A version of myself I don’t like being. I didn’t feel like me. I didn’t sound like me. I didn’t move like me. And what scared me most was I didn’t know how to find my way back.

Because yeah, this is just one part of my life. But it infected every other part. I started isolating. I stopped sleeping. My appetite collapsed. Everything else fell out of balance.

And the worst part? I didn’t know that this was the cause. I genuinely didn’t know that this anger, this unspoken wound, was doing all of this. So I kept blaming burnout. Even though my workload is now healthier, even though I’ve pulled back. Even though I gave myself rest. Nothing changed.

You may be asking… Ok, FFB. What happened? Why are you writing all of this? What’s the point?

Here’s the point. This morning, I got my answer. As I was scrolling through Instagram reels. Casually. Aimlessly. And I came across a reel captioned “My little sister’s first time watching La La Land.”

And this little girl was SOBBING. Like properly sobbing. Heartbroken in the purest, most sincere way. And her mom was saying something along the lines of “Sometimes we’re happy we met someone… but it turns out they weren’t the right one for us.” while the La La Land music played softly in the background. 

And I don’t know what happened to me in that moment. It reminded me of something. A flicker of myself. The hopeful, the loving, the hopeless romantic… I kept watching the video on loop. And suddenly the final scene of the movie started playing in my head. Mia. Sebastian. Their love. The music. The montage. But most importantly, the line: “Welcome to Seb’s.” 

And suddenly the monster inside of me, the one I had been feeding, the one I thought was made of fire and rage, collapsed. TO ITS KNEES. And started to sob, just like that little girl.

Because as it turns out, it wasn’t anger. Not really. It was sadness.

I was sad. I am sad. And I’ve been sad this whole time. I’ve been sad and I didn’t know it.

And this month it was heightened. I still don’t know why and what the significance of this month is. A little voice in my head says it has to do with energy… yes, it sounds like some “voodoo” shit. But I believe it. And it is the reason I have allowed it to soar around me like a black cloud. I knew it was just going to be a matter of time, even when I didn’t understand it. 

But the funny thing is… my Tiktok fyp is full of those “voodoo” self help videos. And most of them said that I had to let go of something. And I was complaining to my friend about it literally a few days ago. I was screaming, (laughing too), “WHAT THE FUCK DO I NEED TO LET GO OF? WHAT AM I HOLDING ON TO?” 

Today, I found out. Today, I take the first step of letting it go, thanks to La La Land. (I knew I didn’t choose my favorite films lightly.)

So yeah. I broke down this morning, I cried like a baby. And at that moment, for the first time in months, everything made sense.

And you want to know what the best thing is? I FELL ASLEEP. Right after that crying session, I passed out and slept for 6 straight hours. 

Wink wink, Universe 😉

I get it now.

Wow, this was a long post. See you soon, lovelies!

Tell me what film wakes something in you too.