Do you ever feel like you’re drowning? Not physically drowning in water, but mentally drowning from all your thoughts? Where it feels like no matter what you do, you can’t come to one conclusion about a single issue, rather before you can work through the issue in your head, you’ve already moved onto something else. That’s how I feel right now. That’s how I’ve been feeling for about the past 6 weeks. It’s not that I can’t formulate a thought or an opinion; I just get too distracted by something else.
All of these thoughts have made it hard to concentrate, to be able to break down some of the barriers that are now holding me back from achieving goals that I have. I’m not talking about big goals either; I’m talking about little goals.
I’m usually pretty good at being able to control my emotions/thoughts, but these past 6 weeks have proven to be a new challenge that I’ve never experienced before. Now I just feel lost. Like I’m stuck in the mud in the middle of nowhere and can’t see anybody for miles that will be able to help. It’s like I’m starting to second guess all of the decisions that I’ve made in the past couple of years. I’m not saying that the decisions I’ve made were wrong, but more along the lines that they aren’t suitable for the new feelings that I’m having.
A lot has changed in the past 5 years, and I did recently turn 29. I know that leading up to being 29 I started thinking about where my life is and how different it is than what I expected it to be 5 years ago. Maybe that’s it, maybe it’s the thought of being older, and being off path from what you expected that is causing these thought problems for me. More likely though, I had some unrealistic expectations for myself at the age of 24, hell probably at the age of 18 they were unrealistic. How do you know if your expectations for yourself are too hard, or if they are too easy? I don’t think you can. What I do know is that I’m probably way too hard on myself. Do I have issues? That is an understatement.
But what do we need to do when we start to feel that we’ve made some mistakes in the past that have derailed us from our ultimate hopes and dreams? Do we drop everything and revert back to a time when life was easier? Is there such a thing as life being easier? Was life ever easier? Maybe it was when we were young and dumb. Or maybe we pack everything up and move away. Try starting over someplace else, with different people and a different perspective. But does that solve anything? I mean you can’t escape your thoughts. Last time I checked it didn’t matter where I was at, I still had the same thoughts running through my head. Maybe it was just easier to deal with them because I was sitting on a beach. Or maybe it was because of the sun in my face.
I ran away to the east coast 5 years ago, set on finding myself and breaking down the barriers that would give me the life I wanted. What I didn’t expect to learn was that 5 years ago the barriers I wanted to break down are not the same ones that I desire to destroy now. While I could sit here and second guess the decisions I’ve made, I’m happy that I made them, even if they weren’t the right ones. How can I say that? Well, if I hadn’t made those decisions, I wouldn’t know what I know now, and knowing what I know now has given me a different perspective on life.
So while I struggle with my thoughts eluding me, struggle with trying to figure out where to go from here, and struggle with how to get there, at least I know that I gave it my all, and nobody can take that away from me. I just have to remember one thing at a time, and the one thing that you need to accomplish first is the thing that means the most to you. While I know what #1 on my priority list is, I also know that it will be the hardest to accomplish. But if I can cross #1 off my list, I feel that everything else will fall into place. But then again time hasn’t stopped moving, so perhaps #1 will change again. I guess it’s a never ending battling in the struggle of life, but I’m happy that I have a chance to go through it all.
