I’m Not Happy Just Yet

I’m going to be real with you. I’m tired of feeling alone. I can ignore it, I can fill it with being busy with work or with friends or just being busy to be busy so I can ignore how I feel inside. It’s loneliness. I’m not the only one. It’s feeling like I’m not enough for myself and in turn I feel like I’m not enough for anyone else. It isn’t a new story. It isn’t a new feeling to hear someone talk about. I want to be raw, I want to be honest. I want to be authentic with my life and how I live it and how I share it with those around me.

Brief side note here; I don’t understand at this point in my life just how much grace it takes for parents to watch their children try and figure out their lives. I imagine it can feel scarier to them than how scared or worried I get about figuring out my life sometimes. There isn’t really a chart for that and comparison isn’t the point, it’s just that, Mom & Dad, thank you because I don’t say it often enough and I still don’t have things figured out and I know you’ve always been pretty trusting about how I do life on the outside but for all the times it’s been less than easy for you to watch me try and do this life thing, thank you and doing this without you, well it’s an even scarier thought. Back to it….

Any one else ever think they cry a lot? I think I must be the only person that cries this much over my silly life and what is there to cry about? I’m fairly well off, my family is doing well, I have a secure job, I have a place to live and the means to make it work. But god there is this thing I haven’t been able to shake for a couple of years. It’s being caught somewhere between, feeling like I have purpose, and trying to know what in the hell it is I want out of life. I knew what I wanted and felt I had a purpose somewhere from being the ages 20–24, so there was a pretty good 4 year period of my life. It’s all felt a little like it has gone to sh*t the now more latter part of my 20’s.

Life is too comfortable right now in certain areas.

I don’t know what I’m learning about life right now. If someone asked me what I’m learning, honestly my first response would probably be, life sucks and then you die? Then I would be more honest and say “I’m terrified of living a lonely and boring life.” There have been moments, days, months where I could tell myself things will be ok and things actually feel like they’re going to be alright. It’s alright, I’m going to be okay, things will work themselves out sort of deal.

Wouldn’t it be great if this were the moment I said I purposely moved into a place by myself to live completely on my own to face my fear of loneliness? No, I didn’t plan this and definitely didn’t expect to find myself hating certain parts of it so much and really those parts are myself. Those parts are really the fears inside of me that I haven’t wanted to look at and I’m in a battle with myself. It comes through as if I’m in a battle with other people and I constantly find myself apologizing for it because I hate that sometimes the storm inside of me gets out and strikes the people closest to me.

I always want to be the best version of myself. But I think I’ve assumed or come to believe this idea that the best version of myself is always happy and making other people happy, it doesn’t cause any pain, it doesn’t get disappointed in itself and others aren’t disappointed in it, the best version of myself is always pretty and says the perfect things. Like what in the world? I need to discover and love the ACTUAL best version of myself and it isn’t everything I just described. It’s more like Tiffany in Silver Linings Playbook where she says this, “I was a big slut, but I’m not anymore. There will always be part of me that is sloppy and dirty, but I like that, just like all the other parts of myself. I can forgive.” You can’t go through life without forgiveness and it isn’t just forgiveness from other people, it’s forgiveness from yourself to you for the parts that don’t make sense or that get dirty and sloppy.

I get it, be motivated, face your fears. All that stuff we try so hard to build ourselves up with but is it working? Do I just need another motivational book? Or do I need to actually change the way I’m thinking? Change my perspective of myself without becoming more self absorbed. I think we’re all succeeding just fine at being absorbed with ourselves and that isn’t helping any one of us feel less lonely but it’s cool whatever we’ll just turn to our good sides an take another selfie.

I’m also so tired of doing everything on my own because I really don’t want to. I like having people involved in my life, of course until they make me realize I need to grow and change in some areas of my life that I don’t want to or makes me uncomfortable. Oh wait, don’t we all do that to some extent? This is probably going to be confusing because it’s me saying some opposite ended things. First, is I’m very independent and I don’t like it when people make me feel like I’m not and then I also don’t like doing everything alone and on my own. I like the camaraderie, the community, the building and doing together. Tension is growth. If you don’t have any tension in your life, I’m not saying go and get in some sort of debate with someone where you are stepping all over one another’s humanity and cutting deep into each other. It’s more like pressure on the things that you know need growth. If you are someone who hits the gym every day to intentionally force your muscles to change then you get it…you need a certain level of tension with your body to make it change. If you don’t push it then you’ll just plateau.

On another note, I’m the queen of vague. I say I want to live an honest life with rich and meaningful relationships…but I’m not sure I know how to. I’m not lying to people about my life, I’m just being vague about it. Which I’m not sure what’s worse but really either option isn’t going to benefit me or any one that genuinely cares about me.

I’m not writing this for pity. I’m not sure what I’m writing this for. So maybe it’s pointless and directionless, like how I feel, more often than I would like to admit. I’m trying to deal with my disappointments and make sense of the things that do and let go of the things that don’t for another time, day or never. Because one day I hope I care less about my loneliness and more about someone else’s. Because there are people lonelier than me and I hope I can help them discover it doesn’t have to be. That’s what I’m believing for. Loneliness is a prison created by fear and fear is a castle that’s weathered and tired.

Yes, many people have observed parts of my life over the last two years and they’ve seen me have better moments and better seasons than what it is presently. There are people rooting for me and there are people rooting for you in whatever storm you currently find yourself in. This isn’t just about loneliness. It’s more about being dissatisfied with the way things are. It’s longing for something more than the way things are.

I want to do better. I want to encourage others to do better. I want to be real with people for the purpose of it promoting change and growth, not just so that we can create a larger castle together that is still weathered and worn and lonely. I can look back over the last two years and see that I really have challenged myself in ways I didn’t expect or wouldn’t have thought it’d happen the way that it has. I want more though and I already have some new challenges coming and new situations where it is creating a tension for growth. I know there is more yet to share but this is the mess I’ll leave you with for now.

At the end of the day I’m having a cup of tea, burning incense and listening to the rain after the storms. I’m searching for the peace in my storms. Take a deep breath. Say out loud the things that I am thankful for.