This morning, my friend Mike sat on the edge of my bed, took a gulp of water from the mason jar he’s claimed as his in our house, and brushed his hair away from his face.
“What do you want to do?” He asked. “What kind of plans do you have?”
You should have felt my stomach drop. “I don’t know,” I said, pulling the blankets tighter around me.
“What do you mean you don’t know.”
“I mean I don’t know.”
I’ve stayed away from here for a while, for several reasons. I found it hard to write anything, and I also found it hard to write anything positive. Things weren’t going well. They’re now starting to get better, but there are still a lot of things that I am letting negatively impact me. I won’t go through all of the details. If you spend time with me in real life or if you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, there’s a chance you know. The short version is that I’ve been unhappy. Things didn’t turn out how I thought they would. And I’m not great at coping with that.
There have been a lot of good things, and I don’t want anyone to think I’m not thankful for those. I am. I’m so thankful for all of the good things. I’ve just never been the kind of person that does well at not letting the bad get to me.
I think the thing for me that’s so hard is that I always wanted to do something that meant something. Maybe it changed someone’s life, or made things better for the community at large, or even just made a process easier for someone – I just wanted to feel like I was making a difference. Like I was improving something.
I don’t feel like that’s the case now, and I’m still trying to figure out how to fix that. I’m trying to figure out how to get up in the morning when I don’t want to get up. I’m trying to figure out how to make my day not feel so monotonous. I’m trying to feel as if what I’m doing matters – as if I matter.
And that’s likely part of the problem. I could tell any one of you any day of the week that you matter, no matter what you’re doing, but I sometimes struggle to believe that about myself. That my presence matters even if I feel like it doesn’t.
I’ve been working towards an attitude shift. Some days it’s easy and others it isn’t. And I’m hoping that over the next few weeks and in to the new year, I can find a way to start over. To find out what really matters to me and focus on that. To be positive.
I finally told Mike this morning that I have something I think I want to do, but that I’m just not sure. The truth is, I’m scared. Scared that I’ll never be any bigger than I am right now. That I’ll never be able to love people the way that I want to, or share my life with people in the way that I hope to. It’s terrifying to want something large and magical and to feel like you’ll never be anything except small and ordinary. And I’m still trying to work out how to move past that fear.
There is a chance some things will be changing here. I might be focusing more on politics and education. I hope you’ll stick around.
