Current mood:

sick

A Sickly Optimistic Post

Human resiliency truly amazes me. For the past four days I have been drifting in and out of consciousness, battling some sort of throat infection that has left me with no voice and zero energy. As a result, I’ve had a lot of extra time to over-analyze and think through many aspects of my life—always a dangerous thing.

I haven’t come to any life-altering decisions, but I have realized that I am at a point in my life where I know myself better than I ever have before. I’m no longer making choices based solely on my emotions or on my heart, but I’m factoring in my mind and experiences. I’ve always been a dreamer, tending towards the idealistic side of human nature, and so I still follow my heart. The difference is that now I’m getting a better idea of when to stray off course so that I will wind up happier in the long term.

Two years ago I thought that I would never feel “normal.” That was a very dark time for me, because all of a sudden everything that I ever knew and believed about myself and those around me completely changed. I had gotten so used to caring about what a certain person thought about me that I kept running around, aiming to please, until I was frustrated, bitter, alone and clueless. Of course I could never live up to this person’s high expectations, because he was looking for someone that just wasn’t me. As simple as that is, when I was in the middle of it I couldn’t figure out what made me such a horrible person, and for the life of me I couldn’t understand why things went as sour as they did. Looking back, I went through a lot, probably a lot more than I really should have, until I hit a breaking point. I put my heart out there, wore it on my sleeve as I so often do, but to the point where it was wide open for anyone to grab and stomp on it. And that’s exactly what happened. And then it all came crumbling down.

I quit baseball, and vowed never to play competitively again. I was done with the high expectations and constant pressure to succeed; it had been plaguing me my entire life. I started drinking excessively and partying harder, and I met some people that I probably would have never associated myself with previously. I did some stupid things, but, looking back, I needed to make those adjustments to be able to climb back up in the end. As low and as depressed as I was feeling, there were a lot of good things that I did too.  

I stopped working 70 hours a week and I learned what it’s like to have a solid support group of friends that I could count on. I worked harder than ever before in school, graduated university with my best marks ever, and I put myself on a career path doing something that I’ve wanted to do since the fourth grade. I really opened up my eyes to the relationships that I’ve been around my entire life. My parents, having been split since I was about four, are each remarried and they have two strikingly different spouses. I learned to relax and just be, and when I started jumping into a relationship I backed off, knowing that I wasn’t ready; that I was still “damaged and scary.”

It wasn’t, and continues to not be easy, and there have been lots of hiccups and personality conflicts along the way. For a while there, I was really bitter about the whole relationship and dating scene -- I had become prematurely cynical. A few months ago my past came back to haunt me, but I took it head on, and stayed strong. Recently I’ve had issues, but I think that my turnover rate is rapidly improving. That couldn’t have been done, or even mentally realized, without the people in my life who accept me for me; those that I know care about me, and that I care about, even when we don’t always have time or energy to show it.

In short, I never knew how resilient I could be to something that once sent me reeling. Even though I still care, the hurt was enough to open my eyes. And it happened for a reason: I was already trying to dig my way out into the light two years ago. If I wasn’t knocked off course, I would have kept digging eastward, when really, all I needed was to go north. I’m definitely spiraling, and it’s never felt better.