Welcome friend. And thank you for being here. No, seriously, thank you. I need some sort of validation outside of my own internal monologue. Those last couple of little brain cells in there kicking around. Oh and congratulations, you’ve found yourself a front row seat to the shitshow of my quarter-life (?) crisis. Let’s not get too deep right now though. People don’t like that. It freaks them out. Unless you yourself are also in some sort of crisis. Then you’re in good company. Let’s start from the beginning.
So, I’m a Virgo. ♍ 💫 But the day of my birth—that’s going a little too far back.
Let’s start with the current chapter. And I’ll make no assumptions, so sorry if this isn’t news to you. Here’s the condensed backstory of what started EVRYDAY.
I’m writing this blog because in some ways, I failed. I fell short of the expectations I had for myself and where I’d be at this point, professionally speaking. Undecided on other areas of life.
The part of life that I really bought into for so long: get good grades, go to college, get a (good) job, save money, buy a house, blah blah blah—seemed easy enough to do. Education was formulaic to me. X + Y = Z. Not to trigger any algebra flashbacks. I didn’t even like math, but I could do it because the formulas, the pattern, guaranteed a certain answer or outcome as long as you followed the formula.
This logic presents itself in other ways, too. Cooking recipes, driving directions, checking the oil in your car because yeah, it’s actually important.
Anyways, the formula. The rules as I understood them in order to be successful in life. The rules I played and still continue to play by. But with a bit more…skepticism now perhaps.
I like logic and organization. Having “rules” or a “formula” to guide me. It makes things make sense. It gives me a sense of control. For me, control and organization go hand in hand. And after going to therapy for the first time, I discovered there are a lot of reasons why a sense of control and organization is so critical for me to function.
And then, about three months ago, I let all of that go. Kind of. Which may sound cathartic. In a way it was, but not because I was deeply enlightened before “letting go”. It was because I was struggling. Hard.
I have an unhealthy relationship with work. I work and work and work and don’t prioritize time off or myself. Mostly because the thought of not having money, yes MONEY, scares me. Thoughts of work would linger in the back of my mind constantly, even on weekends. I'm talking big Sunday Scaries. These thoughts would spill into my dreams and keep me awake for hours at night.
After putting my head down and ignoring how bad things actually were and how much I was trying to make my non-job title responsibilities work to the best of my ability for 8 months straight, I tried to recalibrate. I tried to set new boundaries after taking a week off of work for the first time in a long time. And then I pushed through for another 8 months after that, beneath what eventually became an unbearable workload.
Pair that with a couple of devastating life experiences, and I was on the edge. Constantly. I was overwhelmed with anything and everything. I felt stuck in the same cycle. Dread. Fatigue. Anxiety. Worry. Sadness. Anger. Irritability. Mood swings. Dizziness. Heart racing. Muscle spasms. *breath here*
Following a short trip to Seattle, WA to visit a friend, I had a really difficult trip home. Which happens sometimes, but this was a bit more than I’d experienced before. My flight was canceled so I rebooked a red-eye, only to miss my connecting flight and then I had to rebook my flights twice after that before finally landing back in Savannah, GA. No sleep and then spending an entire day in the Atlanta airport didn’t serve me well, but I was determined to get back because I had to work.
Exhausted, I slept through my 8 AM call the next day, which wasn’t a big deal. But it was the dread of coming back to my role that had become too much to bear that solidified my decision. Two days after my trip, I called my boss in tears to resign from my position. I cried because I really did enjoy the job and I always took pride in my work. Because I’d been able to meet and work with so many great individuals through this job.
But true to my word (yes, I said this verbatim, directly to my boss) and as I predicted months before this call, the amount of work for one person was not sustainable. And I quit the best and highest-paid job I had to-date. Things that I would consider a success.
I finally quit because for the first time, the fear of what would happen to me mentally by staying was immensely greater than the fear I have of the uncertain and unknown.
A full-blown emotional breakdown, surely, was on my horizon. I’m talking admitting myself somewhere sounded like a desirable vacation compared to what it felt like being me every day.
And so I failed. I failed to meet the expectations I had for myself. Despite having followed all of the rules. Despite meticulously adhering to the success formula as I understood it.
And I’m really glad that I failed.
Because now I have to reconcile with the reflection of myself that I don’t recognize. And I have to redefine success. And align my actions with my values, which I’ve been working against or at least not in conjunction with for some time.
So here’s to being almost 30. To having a master’s degree and no job or income (but this is changing). To going to therapy every month. To not owning a f*cking house. To taking back all of this time and energy I gave others and putting it back into myself. To relentlessly pursuing a life worth living. Every day.
Welcome to the shit show. Will every blog post be a stream of consciousness? Probably not. I’m figuring it out.
