You wake up and you don’t know if you’re in the right city or even the right home for you.

You go to work but you keep wondering if this is the life you signed up for, even though you can’t complain, you’re still not sure if you chose this life or if you’re just doing the best with what you have because sometimes it feels like this life was picked for you and you didn’t have any other option.

You go out with your friends but you feel misunderstood, you feel like they look at you but they don’t see you, you feel like you can’t do or say anything right anymore because there is always someone pointing out the messed up pieces of you, telling you how you should behave and how you should speak.

You go back to your room and it just feels lonely, it feels empty, it feels like a place that no longer comforts you. You rest your head on the pillow but you can’t sleep because your thoughts no longer make sense. You can’t even dream. You can’t even rest.

Confusion, doubt and frustration are your new best friends. They’re the ones who cling to you no matter where you go and you can’t get rid of all the questions in your head but you also can’t find the answers to these questions. So you’re living but it feels like you’re slowly dying.

As long as you’re with the wrong people, nothing you do will ever be completely right. As long as you’re with the right people, nothing you do will ever be completely wrong.

And even if it was, you’ll be forgiven, you’ll be comforted, you’ll be understood and you’ll be loved. Because it’s the people around you that can truly elevate your life and inspire you to be great by loving you and accepting you until you find yourself. Until you fly. 

But if you’re surrounded by people who act like they always know better, who claim that they’re more experienced, who keep blaming you for everything that goes wrong in your life then you’ll never truly be at peace with yourself. You’ll never wake up feeling loved and you’ll never sleep peacefully because you’re at war with yourself — between who you are and who they want you to be.

If you don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore, it’s because you’ve forgotten your voice and lost it to the people around you. You’ve forgotten how to be yourself and learned to conform so you can fit in. You’ve forgotten that the world is a huge place and there are people exactly like you; who will accept all your mess and chaos and make it look like art. People who will admire everything you’ve been criticized for. You’ve forgotten that you could find people who will not make you feel like it’s a crime to be yourself.

Rania Naim is a poet and author of the new book All The Words I Should Have Said, available here.