While looking for a specific thing I wrote in a blog a while back, I came across this post about change and moving forward. There have been several before this one and since. It’s been sort of my theme for the last couple of years, I suppose.
Because I was stuck.
Oh, I was happy enough. Comfortably numb might be a better description. I wasn’t feeling a lot, and hadn’t for a very long time. I didn’t really know how shut down I was.
I remember the specific moment it came to me that I was (for the lack of a less melodramatic term) dying on the inside. It was Summer. I was out on the patio reading, messaging intermittently with a friend, and listening to music. This lyric from an Aimee Mann song jumped out at me and knocked me on my metaphorical ass:
So here I’m sitting in my car at the same old stop light.
I keep waiting for a change, but I don’t know what.
So red turns into green, turning into yellow.
But I’m just frozen here on the same old spot.
And all I have to do is press the pedal.
But I’m not.
There had been a lot of thinking about change for quite a while before this, but for some reason, this was the moment where it really went from just thought into realizing I needed to do something about it. It’s when I knew that if I didn’t do something soon, I was going to lose everything about myself. Everything that made me who I am was slipping away, and I was just letting it happen.
I didn’t even know there was anything wrong, but I had been an emotional fraidy cat my whole life. Hiding from myself and everyone else. Never feeling good enough for anything or anybody.
After a lot of thinking and counseling and thinking some more, I stepped on the pedal. Or maybe it was really off the edge. That was over 7 months ago. I wasn’t sure where I was going, and I am still not, but I knew I couldn’t stay where I was any more.
Where am I?
Here.
Now.
Learning to sing again.
Learning to be honest on the inside again.
Learning to trust everyone as a default.
Figuring things out.
How I want to live, what sort of people I want to have in my life.
Teaching myself to talk to strangers.
Learning not to be afraid of people, including myself.
Learning that doing things I am uncomfortable with is good for me.
Figuring out what I want and what I don’t.
Doing things just because they scare me.
Teaching myself to ask for what I want.
Learning to reach out to people.
Doing things I have never done before.
Taking steps to become my self again.
Whoever that is.
Financially, it has been challenging. I have no back up now, and that scares me. I will deal with it. I don’t have a choice.
Emotionally, it has been painful. Before I would have avoided the pain. Now I am learning to feel it, deal with it and move through it. It hasn’t been an easy process, but I wouldn’t change it.
I am looking forward to seeing where the road leads.
Wherever it goes, I will be happy. I will have family and friends who I love. Who love me back.
I won’t ever arrive at a destination, and that’s fine because I’ve learned there isn’t one. It’s all about the road.
Forward.