Isn’t it funny that all you want to do when you are little is be a grown-up so you can be in charge of your own life and do so many fun adult things?…look at us now. When a kid asks me a question I’m unsure how to answer, I still look for someone who is an adultier adult than me. At 28, I would have thought to have it all figured out by now. Even if I didn’t take the traditional path in the game of life, I still think of myself as aimlessly wandering around, not having a clue what my next step is. It’s a journey trying to become your own person, one I am still struggling to complete.
Something I have always had a problem with is needing validation from others and lacking the confidence to believe in myself. I second-guess almost everything I do and when someone disagrees or tries to give constructive criticism, I shut down. I am also a recovering people-pleaser and still suffer from putting others’ feelings above my own. After many years in therapy, I figured out the root of the problem but I’m still trying to believe that what I want and do is the right thing.
Growing up in a small town, it is ingrained to follow the status quo after graduating high school: go to college, marry your significant other, and start having babies. And like any other girl, I wanted that life because that’s all I knew. Once I went out into the world, I started to change. When my views on life shifted, I felt the distance between me and my loved ones. I felt alienated like I had done something wrong. I learned to embrace the change, but from time to time, those old feelings creep back in.
After living my life as a single, globe-trotting, don’t-need-a-man woman, a big change happened in my life at the beginning of the year. For someone who struggles to step into their own, you can bet I have been wrestling with myself over finally landing myself a man. I fell for him almost instantly, which was both shocking and on par for me. I find myself thinking about our future and in the same breath quietly saying “What the fuck”. It scares the shit out of me, but when I’m with him, my mind is at ease.
I think it’s safe to say I’m a work in progress. Most of the time, I feel that it’s just me, that I’m the only person alive that is stumbling through life. I have come to figure out that it is not just me. Everybody at some point or another has pondered who they are and who they want to become. Everyone is going through something. So next time I feel lost in my own adventure, I will try to remember that someone else is lost in theirs too.
Lost in the Adventure 