Month: August 2018

Often times we talk about trusting people, and the impact of losing trust in people. Not today! What I want to poke at today is losing trust in being carefree, in being able to believe… in the normal workflow of life.

Today, given life experiences paired with… well… growing up… I often find myself at various forks along the path of life. One path requires me to trust that everything will just automatically be okay, while the other path is the path of caution, doubt. And I can say that while before I took the first path, now I pretty much only take the latter. Do a majority of adults feel this way? It’s almost like being grown up is the most confusing thing in the world!

I find myself wanting various things so badly… but if those things involve any kind of commitment, then there’s like a million questions that pop up into my head first. Alternate options, how to cover any loopholes, safety plans built into the plan in case mission needs to be aborted, and escape plans in case things don’t work out… even though I know 110% things are going to be fine… I find myself creating “what if we did this instead” schemes that deviate from the normal flow of how things normally work in life.

In addition to trying to trust what’s going on… I also find myself having trust issues with myself. “Will I be able to cope if things don’t work out?” Or “Will I be able to cope with the same situation if it happens again?” Or “Will I be able to cope with a different situation that leaves me equally devastated?”.

Truthfully, most of the time I’m fine… because being surrounded by wonderful people, and having distracting activities… I’ve learned how to put a bandaid over the wound so that I can’t see it. Problem is, I haven’t figured out how to heal the wound itself. While on the outside I can function like a normal person… on the inside I find myself SO fearful of, SO doubtful of the most WONDERFUL and fail proof things and people in my life. And I know I’m doing it, and I know I shouldn’t… but how does one control those thoughts?? The more you push them out the more they push themselves in. And before where I might have spoken up, now each little conflict makes me want to lock myself up and cut off interaction with the world. Which of course I don’t do because I have to behave like a mature adult… but if I didn’t …

I mean I’m guessing everyone who has to be an adult has to felt this way at least once. But especially for any of you who’ve been in a situation where life throws the most unexpected curveballs… be it deception, be it a terrible illness… when do the above mentioned feelings stop?? When do we get to feel and think normally again? What helps??

It’s this phrase that’s near and dear to my heart.

Before life got…. complicated… I think I took a lot of things for granted. Not purposely… but I think pretty much everyone takes day to day things for granted. And it’s not wrong persay… it just happens.

But after experiencing rock bottom… I think I personally started noticing small trivial things and they started meaning a lot more to me… More than all the big amazing things that I obviously am also (knowingly) thankful for.

Every “I love you” and “I miss you” from family and friends … every small gesture that is literally so trivial and unnecessary but performed anyway because it would make my life better in ways I wouldn’t have noticed till it happened… like pushing the toothpaste to the top of an 80% finished tube… or being patient with my OCD as I check if I locked the door exactly 7 times or as I lock the car with exactly 6 beeps.

Tonight’s small happiness was a phone call made by someone currently on the east coast. 23:30 my time, meaning it was 2:30 there… I got a completely unexpected call just so that that person could say “I miss you!” before they went to bed. It wasn’t necessary and my life certainly wouldn’t have been worse off without the call… I wouldn’t have known what I was missing had the call not came. But because it did… it brought a smile and a few tears.

Small happinesses is where it’s at. Those unnecessary efforts taken anyway that touch the heart ❤️

Tonight, at nearly 9pm on a random Thursday night, I find myself sitting alone in my car in a parking lot watching places around me start to close for the night.

I just took myself out on a dinner date. I do that often these days… dinner dates, ice cream dates… and for the most part I’m happy. Actually no… I’m completely happy. I do me. I do what makes me happy… and I keep myself busy.

But I still know the journey… the road I took to get here… and truthfully never in a million years did I imagine this would be how my life would play out. At 18 I had a definite plan. And there was really no reason for life to stray from the path I had planned for myself. All around me there was so much normalness… I never expected my life to be the outlier.

In some sense, as I sit here alone… as the blanket of darkness settles on to us… I have a lot of feelings inside of me. I realize first and foremost… that I am alone. I still feel some sadness, but I feel a lot more relief. I feel wisdom. I feel a little bit confused, I feel some panic and uncertainty.

They say, “want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans”

Truthfully today, a decade later, at 28 I have no plan. I have no idea what to do next. And somehow that’s exacrly when everything is starting to make sense… to be right.

Life is so beyond confusing… with age came the realization that making a plan is a fools job… life is all about the unexpected…