I never really gave much of a thought as to what would happen when I reached this age. I have always had an active imagination, an empathetic brain, and a sensitive spirit. I have been a bundle of nervous energies for my entire lifetime, three decades and three days. But I never thought about what my life would be like now in this moment.
Growing up I always had the impression that as you get older, the more you figure out what you’re going to do in the world. I have had many ideas on what I might like to do, I have many opinions on what I should do. The problem is that life never goes quite the way you think it will, even if you plan it down to the last detail.
I remember thinking I would grow up and marry someone from my hometown. We would sit by bonfires, and he would play guitar, and I would wear his hoodies. I thought your first love was supposed to be your only love. I never realized that maybe love just wasn’t enough to keep you in one place long enough. I was rattled right out of that theory like I was rattled out of my youth.
Next came college, I thought I would learn something more towards making a career, towards finding a useful purpose for myself. Instead I discovered how consuming my anxiety and self-doubt had become. I realized that the larger my world became, the more trapped I felt. Those grandeur ideas of making a career out of art or writing seemed flat out ridiculous. Most days they still do.
College ended abruptly for me. A swirl of bad decisions with good intentions kicked me around until I landed on my feet in Philadelphia. The first few years were a blur of suffocating depression. I have friends who can attest that they hardly heard from me, let alone saw me, while I shut myself up in my home and constantly battled my own demons.
It took my appendix almost killing .me to bring me back to life. Now, this by no means says I have my shit together yet. But that appendix was my savior. Shortly after, I received health insurance which went miles to help with my previously diagnosed Major Depressive Disorder. It seems this chronic depression insists on sticking by my side. But with the boost of anti-depressants, I was able to move out of a toxic situation, and onto a new life.
It has been a couple years since then. To be fair, I still have the same job, the same dosage, the same fears and phobias. I still have a lot of baggage I can’t seem to leave behind. But I live in a safe space, where I have learned to ask for help when I need it, and thankfully a bit more structure to my generally chaotic life.
I remember thinking I would be a grown up by now. But the years keep proving the older I get the more of a myth the theory of an adult is. So hey, if you’re reading this and you’re 13, 33, or even 80, you aren’t the only one who believed the myth of adulthood. It’s make believe. Just be you from beginning to end and hopefully that brings you happiness.
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