So I am 25. I waited and dreaded this day since the day after I turned 24, not for the obvious reasons. I don't hate getting older, I just don't like my birthday. Last year, I had a crazy, ridiculous, unforgettable birthday. So I dreaded this one, afraid it might turn out the same or worse.
This year has been weird. Nothing horrible notable as in years past where bad things occurred, such as accidents, lifelong friendship wrecking arguments, or apartment fires, it was just a drag. It felt like there was no forward movement, just circling the same spot hoping for different results. I don't know what the next move is, but I am going to reflect on my 24th year.
I struggled with my anxiety, and it sucked so fucking bad. I am still struggling, but damn it would be such a lie if I said this year sucked. It did suck at times, but it was so awesome. I got married this year, to my best friend. My niece was born and everyday I get to watch her change and grow. My sister got married. Our whole family dynamic changed. I hate not having a steady income and I hate living with my parents and kind of hate living in the Valley, but I don't know if I would trade any of it for missing out any of this year.
Some days I hated being here more than anything, I hated my anxiety, myself, everything. So why is it I don't regret it. Changes need to be made. I can't live here forever and I need some stability for my sanity, but on my 25th birthday spending it with my husband, my sister, and my niece was the best thing I could have asked for. For better or for worse this is my home, my family is my home.
Sometimes life sucks, bad things happen, jobs are lost, people get sick, and all you want to do is give up. Then you realize there are enough amazing, wonderful moments that make you realize why you can't give up.
I am going to keep trying. Life is far from perfect and I don't want perfect. I am going to try and hope things get better. I am going to learn to enjoy those amazing moments as they happen and not in retrospect.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Monday, December 3, 2012
No Place Like Home...
So you know now that I have always had this urge to move away from my hometown. Although I am still here I haven't been convinced that this is where I ultimately want to settle down. I don't even know when it started, but I never felt like I belonged. I thought this place was supposed to be a starting point, not the whole journey. Okay so I am only 24 going on 25, but it feels like forever.
At this moment in time I am glad to be here, I get to enjoy spending time with my family and my beautiful niece. I feel blessed because I get to watch her change on a daily basis and I know sometime next year her and my sister will move away and it makes me sad and grateful at the same time. Sad thinking about the future but grateful that we have this time together.
When I was younger though being here didn't feel like home. I rarely ever felt at home anywhere. I love my parents, but sometimes I would walk into a friends house and think, this feels like a home. When I was 15 we moved and then we just kept on moving around from house to house. In the past 10 years I have lived in 11 different homes or apartments.
No wonder I never felt at home anywhere. Part of me feels like as soon as I get comfortable I am just going to move again. The only real home I knew isn't my home anymore, the place where I spent ages 5 to 15. Even where I am now, I know it is only a matter of time till I move again, probably within the next four months. I joke that I am a pro at moving now, but man I really hate moving.
Growing up I never felt at ease anywhere, even now there are moments when I don't feel at ease. I have good parents who had good intentions, but too often I felt like I was walking on eggshells in my own home. Constantly waiting for my dad to yell at me for doing something. I grew up thinking I could never do anything well enough. I was a good kid, but I had the sense he was just waiting for me to screw up. Once you get accused of something so many times eventually you ease into the role. I was tired of being accused of being a screw up so I just became a screw up...it only took 20 years.
I never felt at home at home so I spent years waiting to get out of here. Why am I still here?
At this moment in time I am glad to be here, I get to enjoy spending time with my family and my beautiful niece. I feel blessed because I get to watch her change on a daily basis and I know sometime next year her and my sister will move away and it makes me sad and grateful at the same time. Sad thinking about the future but grateful that we have this time together.
When I was younger though being here didn't feel like home. I rarely ever felt at home anywhere. I love my parents, but sometimes I would walk into a friends house and think, this feels like a home. When I was 15 we moved and then we just kept on moving around from house to house. In the past 10 years I have lived in 11 different homes or apartments.
No wonder I never felt at home anywhere. Part of me feels like as soon as I get comfortable I am just going to move again. The only real home I knew isn't my home anymore, the place where I spent ages 5 to 15. Even where I am now, I know it is only a matter of time till I move again, probably within the next four months. I joke that I am a pro at moving now, but man I really hate moving.
Growing up I never felt at ease anywhere, even now there are moments when I don't feel at ease. I have good parents who had good intentions, but too often I felt like I was walking on eggshells in my own home. Constantly waiting for my dad to yell at me for doing something. I grew up thinking I could never do anything well enough. I was a good kid, but I had the sense he was just waiting for me to screw up. Once you get accused of something so many times eventually you ease into the role. I was tired of being accused of being a screw up so I just became a screw up...it only took 20 years.
I never felt at home at home so I spent years waiting to get out of here. Why am I still here?
Right Now
So right now I can't sleep. If I am lucky I will manage to be in bed around 2am. On the nights I am not so luck I am awake until about 5 or 6 in the morning. I wish things were better. I am not miserable or depressed even. I know what that feels like and I never want to go back there. I just wish I were happier. I would do anything to be happier. In this moment I feel like a huge disappointment and in other moments I feel like an utter failure. Unable to accomplish all that I set out to accomplish. I want more out of my life and I am willing to put more in so that I can get more out. Sometimes I wonder if God is listening to my prayers. The prayers for peace in my heart and purpose in my soul. I think I know what I am supposed to be doing, but then I get discouraged and uncertainty fills me.
After one really bad day, I had these horrible thoughts, and felt purposeless and empty. I felt like I had no reason to get out of bed in the morning. These anxiety attacks have a way of paralyzing me from the inside out and I hate it. I want control of my life back and I am desperate to find a way to achieve that.
Anyway during that particular night I had the most wonderful dream. One of my biggest wishes and fears is becoming a mom someday. I want more than anything to become a mother, but my anxiety makes it difficult to think it is a possibility.
So in this dream there was a young boy, not an infant, but a young boy about 2 years old and I went to pick him up to bring him home.I was his mom. The one thing I want more than anything is to adopt a child who is in foster care. In my heart I believe there is a child, and although I did not bring him into this world I am meant to be his mother. I know it sounds crazy, but that is one of the few things in my life I am completely certain of, without a doubt.
When I woke up from that dream I felt this relief, happiness, and anticipation. One day once the rest of my life is figured out I will make that dream a reality. I will work hard to make the rest of it work, so I can to that moment.
So late at night in spite of the anxiety, bouts of occasional sadness, and general uncertainty I know I have a reason and a place in this world.
Right now I am thinking about someday.
After one really bad day, I had these horrible thoughts, and felt purposeless and empty. I felt like I had no reason to get out of bed in the morning. These anxiety attacks have a way of paralyzing me from the inside out and I hate it. I want control of my life back and I am desperate to find a way to achieve that.
Anyway during that particular night I had the most wonderful dream. One of my biggest wishes and fears is becoming a mom someday. I want more than anything to become a mother, but my anxiety makes it difficult to think it is a possibility.
So in this dream there was a young boy, not an infant, but a young boy about 2 years old and I went to pick him up to bring him home.I was his mom. The one thing I want more than anything is to adopt a child who is in foster care. In my heart I believe there is a child, and although I did not bring him into this world I am meant to be his mother. I know it sounds crazy, but that is one of the few things in my life I am completely certain of, without a doubt.
When I woke up from that dream I felt this relief, happiness, and anticipation. One day once the rest of my life is figured out I will make that dream a reality. I will work hard to make the rest of it work, so I can to that moment.
So late at night in spite of the anxiety, bouts of occasional sadness, and general uncertainty I know I have a reason and a place in this world.
Right now I am thinking about someday.
Deep Thoughts...according to me.
So my assumption is that had one big event in my life never happened then my life would be completely different, because my husband wouldn't be in my life.
So if my life were different because of a decision I made that would also affect my husband, because would change. So even if you are perfectly content with every moment in your life take a moment and think what if someone else got a do over, not on there whole life, but just one moment. How would that effect you? Whether or not you believe in God or some grand design, just think about every single decision we make every single day. Okay. Now think about all the decisions all the people in your life make, not just family and friends, but strangers, people you pass on the street.
If any one person you cross paths with were to make a decision differently your whole life might change, just like that. So for those of us who believe are lives are dull, mundane, or even average, think about how easy it would be for all of that to change. I drove down the same road almost every other day to go to work, while in high school. My parents worried about all the dangers of the big scary world outside of this area, but it was while I was driving down a familiar road that everything changed.
I hope you feel blessed each and every day when you get up and run through your usual routine with little excitement.
Oh and a side note for all the bitching and moaning I hear about those poor people, those rich people, those people. Whoever they are "those people" that you love to complain about, and believe me I am guilty of it as well, remember we are all interconnected. Grand Design or not our lives are meticulously intertwined with those of strangers we may never truly know, but we depend on each other, we need each other. Think about that while you are out particularly during this holiday season. A decision someone else makes could have an impact on your life forever, the opposite is also true.
What If...
I often wonder what the tipping point would have been. How far back should I go to change everything? Would I just go away to school in spite of the havoc that became my life post accident or would I just wish away the accident. So lets go with the latter and say the accident never happened.
So for that is where I will start, I will go back to that late day in March on my way to develop spring break photos. Driving down a familiar road and only this time there is no cyclist and I make it to the store, get my pics developed and head back to my friends to show them off.
It seems easy enough. Then I get exactly what I always wanted the opportunity to leave for college.
Only my parents never wanted me to leave, the accident just gave them a legitimate reason to get me to stay. They never would have been okay with me moving 2000 miles away. So we would come to a compromise and I would be allowed to leave the area, but not the state and I would go to my first choice state school. The school of choice would put me far enough away from them, but still close to family so that I would not really be alone.
This is where it get interesting, I applied for this school several months prior to graduating high school, not for anyone else, but because it had a variety of degrees I was interested in. If I had gone to that college I would have been at the same university at the same time as my now husband. My husband and I met online 500 miles away from each other. So it could have been easier or nearly impossible to have met him on a large university campus. Truth be told I don't think our paths would have ever crossed. His political activism has rubbed off on me now, but back then I could have cared less. I would have been focused on my own life and getting myself situated. Maybe if we were destined the universe would have thrown us together, but it seems so unlikely.
One more important factor is, coincidentally the boy from high school who I was hopelessly infatuated with just happened to be attending the same university as my future husband. So who is to say how that would have turned out.
I am still trying to figure out if I believe in destiny and fate. I believe in God and I believe in choices. I think God has a plan for our lives, but I also believe we make our own choices that determine how we get through our journey on Earth.
So right then and there if one event had failed to occur in my life I may never have met my husband. An event occurred that was out of my control when I was 18, but I made the decision to stay here. In the months that followed the accident I decided it was best for me to stay put.
So for that is where I will start, I will go back to that late day in March on my way to develop spring break photos. Driving down a familiar road and only this time there is no cyclist and I make it to the store, get my pics developed and head back to my friends to show them off.
It seems easy enough. Then I get exactly what I always wanted the opportunity to leave for college.
Only my parents never wanted me to leave, the accident just gave them a legitimate reason to get me to stay. They never would have been okay with me moving 2000 miles away. So we would come to a compromise and I would be allowed to leave the area, but not the state and I would go to my first choice state school. The school of choice would put me far enough away from them, but still close to family so that I would not really be alone.
This is where it get interesting, I applied for this school several months prior to graduating high school, not for anyone else, but because it had a variety of degrees I was interested in. If I had gone to that college I would have been at the same university at the same time as my now husband. My husband and I met online 500 miles away from each other. So it could have been easier or nearly impossible to have met him on a large university campus. Truth be told I don't think our paths would have ever crossed. His political activism has rubbed off on me now, but back then I could have cared less. I would have been focused on my own life and getting myself situated. Maybe if we were destined the universe would have thrown us together, but it seems so unlikely.
One more important factor is, coincidentally the boy from high school who I was hopelessly infatuated with just happened to be attending the same university as my future husband. So who is to say how that would have turned out.
I am still trying to figure out if I believe in destiny and fate. I believe in God and I believe in choices. I think God has a plan for our lives, but I also believe we make our own choices that determine how we get through our journey on Earth.
So right then and there if one event had failed to occur in my life I may never have met my husband. An event occurred that was out of my control when I was 18, but I made the decision to stay here. In the months that followed the accident I decided it was best for me to stay put.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Setup for a Breakdown...
I find that I am regularly being told to live in the present or focus on the future and just let go of the past. My problem is that I tend to hold on too tight. Honestly if it were so easy I would be doing it already, just walk away from the past and move forward. I want to believe that I have no regrets. I think we all tell ourselves that so we can justify our current situation. For the most part I think it is true, we tend to live with few regrets. When we sit and breakdown those big life changing moments and sometimes the small less meaningful ones we start to rip apart at the people we have become.
I never had any intention of being almost 25 and living where I do. I look back at these old journals that I wrote and I write about two major topics, 1) Boys, 2) Getting the hell out of here. I started writing in journals when I was in the seventh grade. So yea, when I was about 12 all I wanted to do was make it possible for me to leave. Not just leave but get as far away as possible and hopefully never come back. I was really dramatic. I could not stand living in the dream sucking place. I honestly believe is this is where dreams come to die. Remember I currently live here so no offense to those of you who also happen to live here. At a young age I could see people here had a certain attitude and closed-mindedness that I just could not imagine subjecting myself to for the rest of my life.
The only out I saw was to do well in school and escape. In my journals, other than boys, all I wrote about was my plans and goals for surviving long enough to escape. I love my parents, but when they imagined we graduating high school and going to college, they imagined me staying close to home. I felt like that was a trap. I would never get to experience anything if I never left and college felt like the perfect opportunity. I meticulously wrote down all of my goals, and I intended on following through on them.
So, I didn't exactly follow through...I decided to fit in some fun with the hard work. I took all the right classes , minus those crazy math classes, but I tried. I had moments when I could not see through the haze of why I was doing this. The mantra was, one day it will all be worth it. One day. One Day. I stumbled, especially when I got distracted, by certain distractions, but I made it.
So one day I opened my mailbox and I received my acceptance letter to my dream college and a few others to state schools, that I considered backup schools. It was my ticket to get 2000 miles away from home. A home that never really felt like home. I never really felt as though I belonged here. Of course if you've read other posts you know that a couple weeks prior to receiving the Golden Ticket, I was involved in a traumatic , tragic car accident. So, I never went. I deferred one semester with the intention of leaving, but I chickened out and was destined to stay in the land where dreams come to die.
Only when I look back and think about changing that specific moment, I don't think I would change it. Check back for the breakdown on how different my life would have turned out had made a different decision. It is interesting, at least to me.
I never had any intention of being almost 25 and living where I do. I look back at these old journals that I wrote and I write about two major topics, 1) Boys, 2) Getting the hell out of here. I started writing in journals when I was in the seventh grade. So yea, when I was about 12 all I wanted to do was make it possible for me to leave. Not just leave but get as far away as possible and hopefully never come back. I was really dramatic. I could not stand living in the dream sucking place. I honestly believe is this is where dreams come to die. Remember I currently live here so no offense to those of you who also happen to live here. At a young age I could see people here had a certain attitude and closed-mindedness that I just could not imagine subjecting myself to for the rest of my life.
The only out I saw was to do well in school and escape. In my journals, other than boys, all I wrote about was my plans and goals for surviving long enough to escape. I love my parents, but when they imagined we graduating high school and going to college, they imagined me staying close to home. I felt like that was a trap. I would never get to experience anything if I never left and college felt like the perfect opportunity. I meticulously wrote down all of my goals, and I intended on following through on them.
So, I didn't exactly follow through...I decided to fit in some fun with the hard work. I took all the right classes , minus those crazy math classes, but I tried. I had moments when I could not see through the haze of why I was doing this. The mantra was, one day it will all be worth it. One day. One Day. I stumbled, especially when I got distracted, by certain distractions, but I made it.
So one day I opened my mailbox and I received my acceptance letter to my dream college and a few others to state schools, that I considered backup schools. It was my ticket to get 2000 miles away from home. A home that never really felt like home. I never really felt as though I belonged here. Of course if you've read other posts you know that a couple weeks prior to receiving the Golden Ticket, I was involved in a traumatic , tragic car accident. So, I never went. I deferred one semester with the intention of leaving, but I chickened out and was destined to stay in the land where dreams come to die.
Only when I look back and think about changing that specific moment, I don't think I would change it. Check back for the breakdown on how different my life would have turned out had made a different decision. It is interesting, at least to me.
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