When you’re a kid, a year is marked by your age and grade level. Your days are all about living in the moment and having fun. You celebrate birthdays, making innocent wishes (that seem so attainable) as you blow out the candles. You get extra excited about the milestone years: Turning double digits, becoming a teenager, being able to drive, and reaching the end of childhood at the age of eighteen.
After that, it’s all about being the sought-after age of twenty-one. But as an older college dorm mate wisely told me once, birthdays just aren't quite as meaningful after that. They really just feel like any ordinary day.
Sure, there are the milestone years of twenty-five and thirty, and sometimes you have memorable evenings out with friends. But eventually, the time comes when you tend to forget just how old you are as the days and years blur altogether.
Honest to God, it’s true. You try to do the mental math (Current year- Birth year= My age!), but your mind just doesn’t think as quickly as it used to. Even if you get it right, you question it. Maybe it’s because there’s just too much in there after all the years of living through life: Memories. Scars. Flashbacks. Regrets. Questions. What Ifs...
When you're a parent, your mind is filled with even more. When your child’s birthday comes
around or it's an end of another school year, you compare photos from past years, finding yourself completely mesmerized by their growth and changing looks.
How is my baby so big?!
Right now, with my newly turned eight-year-old who just finished second grade, it's been all that and much more.
As this summer begins, I can't help but think about this time last year. June 2023: The month that I unexpectedly lost my job, and then soon after, was told that our rental house was being torn down. Just typing that, I'll admit that my heart hurts remembering the difficulties that came as both unplanned for changes were within days of each other. It was a lot in itself, but to happen on top of everything else that I had already been going through over the last few years, I hit my breaking point. The depression hit hard. I was at lowest I had been in a very long time, if not ever.
My days typically started off with morning coffee and always ended with multiple glasses of wine. In between my daily beverages of choice, I went from feeling numb to feeling everything, all at once. I barely cried but found solace in naps that allowed my hurting heart to rest and my racing mind to stop. When awake, I watched way too many crime shows, redid my daughter's scrapbook, and begged, prayed, and pleaded to God and The Universe for help.
Long story short, I survived.
And I'm not sure if I even know just how.
Last year, a friend told me that it appeared as though I was being "untethered". I just happened to finally be reading The Untethered Soul at the time so realized what she meant, although I wasn't sure if that was really the case or not. But now, I think she was right.
The world I knew and fought so hard for was crumbling down on top of me and I couldn't do anything else to stop it. Things had to end, and I had to learn to let go. Honestly, I didn't really have any other choice nor much left to lose. I had to take chances, have faith, and keep going.
I still think a lot about the things that I’ve been through over these challenging years and wonder how I am still standing. Maybe others do too.
I will never once say that it has easy, and in fact, I hope this journey of mine gains more recognition for being so damn hard. I have crashed and crumbled, been bruised and broken. I have cried and prayed more times than anyone on earth will ever know. But I have never fully given up, and despite feeling drained and hopeless, I never will. Mainly because I will never forget the symptoms I've cared for the struggles that have forever changed my life.
But through it all, I have come to learn so much, mostly about myself, that I think can only be discovered through challenges and hardship.
Since this time last year, I am not only stronger, but I have become much more in tune with myself and my own needs. I have reflected on how hard I have fought for others- for their health, for their happiness, for their peace. But now, it is also time to focus on me. I was worth fighting for. My health, my happiness, and my peace.
My time and my energy need me too. And for others with the kindest of hearts, you know it’s the hardest thing to commit to. But really, I didn’t have any other choice. I had reached my breaking point in so many ways, and I had to keep going. I had to work on my own healing for once. I had to pick up my own pieces and focus on my needs, instead of everyone else’s. No one else could do it for me. I had to do this for myself.
Words really can't begin to explain how difficult this journey has been for me, but I now know that it was something that meant to guide me, teach me, and lead me to where I am and where I’m meant to go. I don’t know why all of these things happened, but they did. I can’t change the past, but I can find the gratitude in it.
Life is still very hard, but I’m not the same. I am better, wiser, and stronger. I worry less about the things that really don’t matter, simply because I know what really does. I’m not afraid to take chances. I’m not scared of the things that I once was. I take pride in my resilience and have faith in myself. I trust that good things will come, even if I don’t know how or when, because I know I’m worthy of such happiness.
The days go by, sometimes feeling like things are never going to get better or hard times are never going to end. But when you look back, a year later, you realize just how different everything really is and how much you've grown. It may not be noticed by others or recognized in photos, especially when you're forty-years-old, but it's much more meaningful than that because you feel it on the inside.
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