I just turned twenty years old. (For those of you who don't know, that's very young.) This is sort of an unpredictable time in my life, but I don't think I've ever been so happy or certain or at ease.
This year has been quite a year for me. I started off in a state of absolute disarray. I was fresh out of a three year relationship. I was caught up in the excitement of being in a show, being young, and being irresponsible. For the first time in what felt like forever, I had no one to hold me accountable for what I did. It was almost Portland all over again: I was busy, I was reckless, and I was absolutely miserable.
I won't say that nothing good came out of that period of time, because almost the opposite is true. Once I began to realize what I was doing, it really woke me up to a lot of things that I had been avoiding for months and years and maybe a whole lifetime. I've always been proud of being mature for my age, but that period of time brought me down to a level that I hadn't been to since I moved out of my house when I was fifteen. The foundation on which I'd built my life had absolutely crumbled away and I was left to try to rebuild with my hands something that I'd always had the tools for before. There was no more fixing up leaky pipes and touching up chipped paint; it was an absolute demolition.
With Spring came the panic and realization that the path I was on was selfish, self-destructive, and so far from who I was and what I wanted that I could hardly recognize myself sometimes. I started to try to undo all that I'd done in the previous months. I began to grasp the fact that I had absolutely no idea what I wanted anymore. I had no direction, so I went in every direction at once, bouncing off the walls of frustration, insecurity, guilt, and denial. I was a horrible friend. I was a horrible family member. I was horrible to myself. But I was determined to try anything I could to try to find the right path. And with that goal firmly in my grasp, I trudged forward into the early summer months.
Being out of school finally brought me down from the manic state that I was in. I didn't have a place of my own, so I felt sort of adrift... but I felt okay. I saw almost no one, and I made almost no plans. I drove home to Rochester more times than I care to think about, but the long drives gave me the time I needed to really evaluate myself and my life and where I wanted to be. I started to think about the things that made me happy and the things that didn't... the things that were important to me, and the things that weren't. I learned about letting go and about investing in things that are worth it.
But it wasn't until the very end of summer that it all came together. It took the thought of going back to school and doing something that I never wanted to do to begin with. It took a friend that I'd mistreated moving away and me realizing how badly I'd messed up. It took a serious talk with Nana about avoidance and communication. And it took seeing too much of myself in a guy who, at 22 years old, was too wrapped up in himself to take responsibility for himself and his actions.
So here I am. I'm moving forward. I'm rebuilding bridges. I'm working hard, I'm not limiting my choices, and I'm taking life as it comes. I know what I want, and I know what I need, and I know what I need to work on. I'm doing what makes me happy.
And it feels wonderful.
No comments:
Post a Comment