The Long Road Back

I.

It is with perpetual hope and joy of life that I’ll pave my way back to myself.

It happened very slowly and then all at once, I find myself reflecting on the past few years and acknowledging that In order to cope with the uncertainty saturating every aspect of my life, I turned to control. I falsely cling to the hope that If I could only just control for x, then y part of my life wouldn’t be falling apart. In doing so, I lost myself.

A million reasons and explanations flood my brain. Growing up. Living together. Alcoholism. Cancer. Not knowing how to ask for help or even communicate a need for connection. Over giving. Defining my self worth with a constantly changing drive to work in x y or Az field. The end result is I stopped taking care of my own wants and needs and found myself spending all my time checking boxes and working to fulfill the wants and needs of those around me.

At the time it must have just felt easier, but now I know it’s not the life I want to or will continue to live. Life is so full of opportunity if only we figure out how to find our unique ways of enjoying and living, and my god do I miss the enjoying and the living!

II.

I want to bungee jump, and speed way beyond what feels safe. I want to cheat, and disappear, and reappear somewhere I’ve never heard of in a place where I don’t understand the language. My skin is itching, craving the unknown and the novel. I want to break free of the shackles that I chained to myself and nailed to the ground.

So that’s what I’m doing. I’m freeing myself from the self made prison. No more waiting for others to make me happy, and misdirecting my expectations for myself onto other people. I’m taking back my autonomy and finding myself again.

Through reliving memories of lying on the grass in the crisp mountain air, conversations about life and aspirations, dreams and goals, I’m remembering who I’ve been. And unexpectedly realizing that I don’t want to return to who I was on that mountain, instead I will incorporate her into this stronger, more independent and confident version of myself.