Hello, it's me.
I apologize for not having written in so long. My mind has been a whirlwind of emotions that I can't quite explain.
But I'll try, because that's what I do.
I just celebrated my 33rd birthday. And, as always, I've cracked jokes about getting older and feeling behind in life and blah blah blah. But I've discovered something truly magical in this past year.
It doesn't matter.
Age is indeed really just a number. There is no order to things and I find it ironic that for a time, I found myself struggling to catch up. I still do this but the voice inside my head urging me not to has become louder with time. The truth is, I have never been a straight line type of gal. I go in every zig-zagged direction before I make it to my destination. And even then, I struggle with settling.
The word 'final' has never truly been in my vocabulary.
Someone told me recently while having a conversation about life, dreams and whatnot, that I seem to be more "settled" than she is. This struck up an emotion within me that only those who have experienced my bouts of extreme stubbornness could identify with.
I'm not settled.
I'm far from being settled.
What gives her the right to view my life in this way?
Perhaps it might not seem like an insult to some, or maybe even most of you. But over the last several months I've let these words identify me. They have slowly been seeping into my brain, rendering me paralyzed from moving forward.
I feel stuck.
Is it too late for me to go on one of my crazy, random adventures? Isn't it time I settle down, buy a house, pop out a couple of kiddos and live this American Life? Who's to say that I can't still travel and have kids and a home with 5 cats and a dog? Who's to say I have to follow the rules?
I never have before so I find it odd how much I'm struggling with even the thought of becoming uniform. Maybe it's because this is what I eventually am "supposed" to do. The critics floating around in my mind tell me it's not OK to be both nomadic and have a family with a white picket fence and a yard for the dog to roam.
I can't have it both ways.
Or can I?
I have been unhappy in my line of work for at least 5 of the 10 years I've been a part of it. Maybe I've never fully let myself settle into it though it's the security that has kept me from leaving after all of these years. I'm good at it. It pays the bills (sort of). It provides a place to go 5-6 days out of the week.
But I still feel lost and at a stand still.
I've always struggled with normalcy. Even the idea of it is something totally foreign to me. I remember having conversations in my head beginning at the age of 7. I would have contests with the people living in my mind over who takes the quickest shower, brushes her teeth faster, gets dressed, ect ect. Even then I recall stopping myself for a brief moment and clearly thinking, 'I don't think other children spend their time doing this, perhaps I'm crazy, oh well, who cares?'.
But I always cared...perhaps too much. Maybe even so much that it has affected me into my adult life. I care what people think and I care how my decisions, though they are my own, might affect the people I care about. This, I feel, has kept me from doing the things that have slowly, with time, become more and more important. I keep brushing them off, telling myself that there is always time. What's another day? Another week? Another year?
Suddenly the list has become massive in my brain and I'm feeling overwhelmed. Suddenly I have all of these things to accomplish and I don't know where to begin because I've been sitting in limbo for so long.Suddenly, I want to stop worrying so much about how it might affect someone else, when all along, it's been affecting myself without me being aware of it. I want to fill this void that prevents me from living.
Does this make me a bad person?
We all have a bucket list of dreams and we all have goals. Somewhere between childhood and becoming an adult, I have separated these two items into to two completely different categories. Somewhere I have lost the ability to make my dreams come true without feeling guilty.
Not completely, but I do struggle when every day life simply gets in the way.
I'm 33 years old and feel like I have been putting a time stamp on everything. Today is the beginning of a new way of thinking. Today is a new day. Today, I choose to do whatever the hell I want.
Today, the adventure begins.
"After my picture fades and darkness has
Turned to gray
Watching through windows - you're wondering
If I'm OK
Secrets stolen from deep inside
The drum beats out of time -"
-Cyndi Lauper (Time After Time)
I apologize for not having written in so long. My mind has been a whirlwind of emotions that I can't quite explain.
But I'll try, because that's what I do.
I just celebrated my 33rd birthday. And, as always, I've cracked jokes about getting older and feeling behind in life and blah blah blah. But I've discovered something truly magical in this past year.
It doesn't matter.
Age is indeed really just a number. There is no order to things and I find it ironic that for a time, I found myself struggling to catch up. I still do this but the voice inside my head urging me not to has become louder with time. The truth is, I have never been a straight line type of gal. I go in every zig-zagged direction before I make it to my destination. And even then, I struggle with settling.
The word 'final' has never truly been in my vocabulary.
Someone told me recently while having a conversation about life, dreams and whatnot, that I seem to be more "settled" than she is. This struck up an emotion within me that only those who have experienced my bouts of extreme stubbornness could identify with.
I'm not settled.
I'm far from being settled.
What gives her the right to view my life in this way?
Perhaps it might not seem like an insult to some, or maybe even most of you. But over the last several months I've let these words identify me. They have slowly been seeping into my brain, rendering me paralyzed from moving forward.
I feel stuck.
Is it too late for me to go on one of my crazy, random adventures? Isn't it time I settle down, buy a house, pop out a couple of kiddos and live this American Life? Who's to say that I can't still travel and have kids and a home with 5 cats and a dog? Who's to say I have to follow the rules?
I never have before so I find it odd how much I'm struggling with even the thought of becoming uniform. Maybe it's because this is what I eventually am "supposed" to do. The critics floating around in my mind tell me it's not OK to be both nomadic and have a family with a white picket fence and a yard for the dog to roam.
I can't have it both ways.
Or can I?
I have been unhappy in my line of work for at least 5 of the 10 years I've been a part of it. Maybe I've never fully let myself settle into it though it's the security that has kept me from leaving after all of these years. I'm good at it. It pays the bills (sort of). It provides a place to go 5-6 days out of the week.
But I still feel lost and at a stand still.
I've always struggled with normalcy. Even the idea of it is something totally foreign to me. I remember having conversations in my head beginning at the age of 7. I would have contests with the people living in my mind over who takes the quickest shower, brushes her teeth faster, gets dressed, ect ect. Even then I recall stopping myself for a brief moment and clearly thinking, 'I don't think other children spend their time doing this, perhaps I'm crazy, oh well, who cares?'.
But I always cared...perhaps too much. Maybe even so much that it has affected me into my adult life. I care what people think and I care how my decisions, though they are my own, might affect the people I care about. This, I feel, has kept me from doing the things that have slowly, with time, become more and more important. I keep brushing them off, telling myself that there is always time. What's another day? Another week? Another year?
Suddenly the list has become massive in my brain and I'm feeling overwhelmed. Suddenly I have all of these things to accomplish and I don't know where to begin because I've been sitting in limbo for so long.Suddenly, I want to stop worrying so much about how it might affect someone else, when all along, it's been affecting myself without me being aware of it. I want to fill this void that prevents me from living.
Does this make me a bad person?
We all have a bucket list of dreams and we all have goals. Somewhere between childhood and becoming an adult, I have separated these two items into to two completely different categories. Somewhere I have lost the ability to make my dreams come true without feeling guilty.
Not completely, but I do struggle when every day life simply gets in the way.
I'm 33 years old and feel like I have been putting a time stamp on everything. Today is the beginning of a new way of thinking. Today is a new day. Today, I choose to do whatever the hell I want.
Today, the adventure begins.
"After my picture fades and darkness has
Turned to gray
Watching through windows - you're wondering
If I'm OK
Secrets stolen from deep inside
The drum beats out of time -"
-Cyndi Lauper (Time After Time)
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