What do you do when you feel foreign in your own skin? In interacting with other humans? When you know who you want to be, how you want to show up in this world and carry yourself, and how you not only want to be perceived but the qualities you truly want to embody so that all facades are laid bare, yet it’s all you can do to think positive thoughts and control the litany of judgments and frustrations interwoven into the fabric of your psyche? When I explore what’s deep underneath the surface of many of my thoughts, belief patterns, and autopilot type behaviors, I recognize that it namely circles back to my irrational, fear-based programming of believing myself to be unworthy, or not enough. How do I fully commit to and put into practice loving myself into utter wholeness to the point where each moment of the life I lead is a reflection of divine joy, love, and peace rather than fear, comparison, and anxiety? Am I going through what is the largely unrecognized ‘mid-20s crisis?’ 2019 has been one of the biggest years of change yet. When I was 20-23, I was sure I had found myself. I was sure I loved myself. I was sure I was fearless, confident, and independent. I felt very content with the progression at which I was moving at. I felt a deep reverence to life. I thought I was doing everything right. I had a college degree under my belt, had landed my dream job, and I excelled at it. I made more than enough money and enough paid vacation time to take leisure trips to any international country I yearned to explore. My days off were spent adventuring hard and participating in extreme outdoors activities. I proudly wore the titles of doer and achiever. A year later, at the age of 24, after a couple of life changing events, my ideals, pretenses, and projections came into question. At 25, I’ve been on a continuation of this rocky rollercoaster ride… faltering between being comfortable with not having a clue what’s to come or who I am and being absolutely terrified and desperately wanting to rediscover myself. The cold, hard truth is that… I have the full capacity within me to be codependent, selfish, jealous, controlling, conniving, dishonest, judgmental, and egotistical. It wasn’t until this last year that I have actually been willing to examine all of the aspects of my personality and take accountability for them. I’m not as evolved as I once thought I was.
At 25, I worry I’m behind. Up until about a year ago, my life has looked much like the bustling environment of a city – constant movement, incessant yearning for the better, the newer, the brighter, the taller – the next visa in my passport, the next line on my resume, the next certification or degree next to my name. I’d like to say the burden of being young, intelligent, and ambitious is that I’ve never felt I had the luxury of slowing down. My potential cloaks me in obligation. At least, this is the umbrella of thought I used to live my life under… the types of fear based thoughts I have to remain aware of on a regular basis and then replace them with love. My inner dialogue with myself used to sound something like: ‘I am able to do something noteworthy and therefore I must.’ It’s both a blessing and curse to be aware that my destiny sits quietly in my hands as I decide what exactly I want to create with it and all the while the world keeps moving at this incomprehensible pace, and I feel overwhelmed.
I’m a compulsive list maker. I have been since I had the capability to meld pen with paper in a coordinated fashion. I’ve also always harbored borderline OCD tendencies when it comes to organization. When I was little girl and my mom and I would go to a store, regardless of what aisle we found ourselves in, I’d go on an organization mission. I’d rearrange all the beanie babies on the shelf by animal species and stack them in a way that was aesthetically pleasing, then I’d proceed to arranging shoes so their sizes and brands correlated and refold the shirts and pants that had been disheveled by people cursorily and carelessly browsing through them. The act of organization made me feel accomplished and never failed to bring a smile to my face. This trait carried over into my adolescent and adult years. Only recently have I begun to reflect on the underlying paradoxical nature of it and that it’s both a blessing and curse. I’ve always been a lover of Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. Alice was regularly the anomaly. She viewed life with a dreamy, rare, and unique perspective and was often perplexed by all experience and phenomena. The White Rabbit repeatedly exclaimed that he was running late… always in a hurry to arrive at the next destination. Completely unable to remain present and savor what was happening in real time. I can fully relate to living life in this way, and can attest to there being a deep seated anxiety created from being on the wheel of motion whose momentum is perpetually propelled from a doer mentality and goal driven existence. It indeed provides someone with a sense of accomplishment and incremental releases of endorphins, namely dopamine, but it’s completely unsustainable. Eventually, the human hamster wears out, and no amount of checkmarks on the to-do and bucket lists or diplomas on the wall can compensate for the residual exhaustion and spiritual void that one feels.
I’ve always had a strong proclivity toward personal growth and self-improvement in the esoteric, spiritual, and emotional realms, while also wanting to live a meaningful human existence and do something amazing, physical, and tangible with this one life. Something notable, impacting, moving, and inspiring… something that would have a positive influence on the world as a whole. What did I envision that ‘something’ to be exactly? I didn’t always have that concisely defined, but ideas relentlessly trickled through my mind and my list of goals was constantly being edited and refined. Often my daydreams and visions involved some type of humanitarian work on a global scale. I’ve always been an idealistic visionary and dreamer, and having a strong masculine father figure throughout my childhood and teenage years not only equipped me with the ability to dream and set goals, but furthermore, to take definitive action toward making them a reality.
From the time I was a small child, I felt that I was here on this earth to enact positive change and make a real difference. After my first experience of volunteerism in western Africa when I was 20, I felt inspired, motivated, and also, a bit defeated. A new fire was lit underneath me, but the particular flame I’d been being fueled by for years was dimmed. My idealistic nature had been bruised by the punches delivered by the harshness of the reality I was exposed to. My dream of being a beacon of change for the marginalized and for the planet didn’t entirely fade, but my propensity dwindled slightly. My optimistic idealism was being blended with undertones of realism. I began focusing more on what I could do on a smaller scale closer to home. I continued on my path of working towards obtaining a degree in the medical field, knowing that it would be of aid regardless of what direction life took me. Here I am, 5 years later, and life is taking me in a direction I never would have imagined or intended… on a trajectory toward motherhood.
Being a young, Caucasian female of privilege who grew up in America, I often felt a responsibility or duty to continue educating myself, pushing myself toward achievements, and expanding my repertoire of skills so that I could make the type of difference I thought I wanted and needed to make in this crazy yet beautiful world that I was fascinated by on a daily basis, yet understood so little about. I possessed a radical hope for humanity and the fate of society, combined with a deep sense of purpose around my self-proclaimed responsibility and fervent passion of working hard to change it all for the better. I was under the impression that if I didn’t do this, I’d be wasting my time and precious human existence and miss out on appreciating and experiencing the real point of life entirely. Anytime I’d have a conversation with folks, my ego would get stroked and my outlook was reaffirmed and validated. They were impressed by my drive and maturity at such a young age, and applauded my vision and hopes. I had graduated highschool as valedictorian at the age of 15 and was pulling straight As in college a few months later. My days were filled with constant reminders of expectations. “Don’t get stuck like I did. Once you have kids your life. If I could do it again, I would have done what you are doing. Travel the world, go to school, have kids later.” People’s stories of regret, resentment, and lack of feelings of fulfillment cycled constantly in my head – decade long narratives of lost time and missed opportunities and I didn’t want to find myself lost in the same story, so I would nod my head insistently in wholehearted agreement. I knew I was on the right track and unwaveringly walking my path with my head held high.
I never thought I’d have children. I could see everything in my future – if a genie had offered me a crystal ball, I honestly would have declined it, because I wouldn’t have seen myself having any use for one when my life plan was always laid out on colorful sticky notes and neatly bulleted lists… and indubitably, a child was not typed or written next to any of my bullet points. Yet, I told myself that if my feelings were to change in the distant future, perhaps in my 40s once I had gotten the majority of my wanderlust out of my system and felt mostly complete with continuing my education and learning new skillsets, I would absolutely forgo the experience of being pregnant and giving birth myself, and adopt a beautiful African baby from a rural village in Kenya or Ethiopia. Being what I’ve always liked to term ‘earth mama’ and caring for nature has always come naturally to me. But being a mama to another living and breathing human 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year was never going to make it onto my list of goals or life aspirations. Truly, the thought of it evoked an undeniable sense of fear. I judged motherhood, especially in one’s younger years, as a failure and obstacle, an unwanted sacrifice, a major compromise of potential, and a serious infliction upon one’s duty as a privileged person. ‘Who had time for that?’ ‘Who would put themselves in such a vulnerable and unfortunate position?’ ‘Who would want to sacrifice their life mission and dreams to raise a helpless being…’ I thought.
I always had a literal and metaphorical peak to climb and a plane to catch, and there wasn’t anyone or anything that was going to hinder me. I cherished being revered by my coworkers and others as being a die-hard adventurer, outdoors enthusiast, world traveler, and seeker of new experiences. I snuggled cozily into this persona. I bought into the lie that I am what I do. I learned to heavily identify roles and activities as being the foundational essence of who I was. And really, it wasn’t strictly a falsely projected persona… I was indeed living said lifestyle and I wasn’t slowing down anytime soon. Or so I thought.
“I want to bake my blackberry into blackberry pancakes
And live wire-less
With a husband who runs in the mornings
And lots of books
And a baby who I raise…
To be anything – or nothing
Because that’s okay too.
Because working in a bookstore and having babies
And nothing and being in love is okay too.”
Now, as I near my 26th revolution around the sun, I’m getting closer to the point of no longer caring whether or not the world applauds my efforts. No longer do I want expectations and fear of lost opportunity to be my predominant compress. I want to fall in love with life without the relentless ticking of the clock. I want to forget the pedestrian number of years I’ve been on this earth in this human shell and simply fall in love with life and each moment as it presents itself, and to not be in a codependent relationship with my planner.
The future will be what it is and all I have is right NOW. To laugh, and breathe and dance and… be. Perhaps, it takes more courage to be nothing than to do something. To be loved deeply by few and forgotten by the rest. To choose being less kinetic and productive over skyscraper ideals of success. To cease all effort and trying and just let go. Maybe, it takes more motivation to live simply and authentically and to change the life of the one instead of the masses. To stop the race and just sit in the dirt and watch the bugs and the grass blowing in the wind for a while. Life deserves to be lived fully, and ironically enough, humans in this modern day society, myself included, tend to associate busy-ness with success, accomplishment with freedom, and productivity with living life to the fullest. Is this truly the case? I’m finding that it isn’t.
Living fully requires being present, to reside in a place inside that is still enough to where we can still be aware of our chest rising and falling, without checking our calendar to see what we have planned 7 months and 3 days from now. It requires us to embrace each day with hope and spontaneity while detaching ourselves from expectations of a specific outcome and relinquishing the compulsion to race to some false projection of where the finish line lies and what exists beyond it. It requires us to bask in the simplistic, raw, moment to moment beauty and pain of it all, and to find the goodness in people and in ourselves. World change starts on an incredulously smaller scale than we pay credit to – and that scale resides in ourselves, deep within our own heart.
My accomplishments are like city skyscrapers. Beautiful, shining structures boasting my egoic value amongst the clouds. Radiant at first glance, but artificial at their core. Striking, but isolating. The truth is, I don’t know who I am without all of that. My towers are engraved with the praise of those whose approval I was striving to obtain… their walls echoing the applause of sophisticated academia and bucket lists. When I clean away the barely visible fingerprints to reveal the truth of it all, I realize that what I thought mattered the most, doesn’t fucking matter at all. I’m ready to leave world changing to some contingent of city sprinters and just live in the moment and pour my energy into understanding me and developing my relationship with myself above all else.
Maybe I want to live in the mountains surrounded by forests of pines and aspens and watch the sunrise over statuesque peaks. And that’s all. Maybe I want early morning snowfalls and the emergence of spring blossoms to remind me that I am a delicate human. Maybe I’ll grow food for myself and my family… eat carrots that I talked lovingly to while they were gestating under the soil that I tilled with my own hands. Maybe I’ll plant a flower garden so I can start my day with giggles and relish in the scents and colors while I talk to butterflies and dragonflies. And that’s all. Maybe I’ll go to dance classes with my daughter and live for hugs and cuddles, reminding her to love herself as I cup her rosy cheeks in my palms and tell her she’s beautiful and try to convey her unquantifiable worth to her. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with considering what I used to think would be a mediocre life, a life overflowing with miracles and magical simplicity. Maybe ‘settling’ isn’t actually settling at all.
Perhaps I’m really not late, nor early. I’m always right on time. Life sends out a constant invitation to surrender and be present. And in the ocean of Truth, there is no such thing as right or wrong or late or on time. Maybe… just maybe, I don’t want towers overflowing with goals and lists and plans and dreams and convictions… what I actually want are roots… and to channel my energy into cultivating that which can only be found within, not in a textbook or in a foreign country.
