CaTcHiNg Up WiTh MySeLf

My emotions have been spastic lately. Not in a bad way—I’m not sad or stressed or anything like that—I just think that mentally and physically, I am finally beginning to catch up with myself. I knew this would happen. In fact, I was hoping it would happen. Truthfully, I’m surprised it didn’t start to happen sooner. But I suppose that’s the nature of being so busy in all facets of life – you don’t have time to really think, or feel. You just plow forward, moving through it as quickly and efficiently as you possibly can. And, as the past few years have taught me, if there’s anything I am good at it, it’s moving through things.

There is nothing about this life that I don’t love. But regardless of how happy I am – and I am happy – there has been so much change, and it’s hard not to feel affected by it. Sometimes I lay awake at night and just review the past 6 months. I think about the circumstances I endured, the places and feelings I journeyed through, and where I reside, emotionally and physically, today.

Last night I sifted through my old diary and was shocked by the hopelessness I felt. I expended so much time and energy into attempting to “fix” what I felt was broken. I felt isolated, stagnant and generally dejected. Nothing was really going the way it should, the way I had envisioned for myself. My career was slowing, my friendships were fading, I missed my home town and rest of my friends was far away. I was with someone I loved, who knew me better than anyone and who had been by my side through my life’s hardest moments, but I knew it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t happy. The relationship was one-sided and uneven, I would have made it work, but for the most part I would have lived my life alone. . Those feelings and thoughts came from me—was I really that forlorn? That unsatisfied? And was I really going to continue on in my life feeling that way?

It’s amazing the way life works out, and how circumstances line up for us when we least expect them. I would have accepted and put up with so much to preserve my relationship. But the one thing I refused to give up on was family. That was the trigger that I needed to change my entire situation—to make it better. And I did. Change isn’t easy, but it’s necessary. It’s the only way we can transition from Point A to Point B; the only way we can grow, and find a new life circumstance that suits us much better, and makes us happier. Sometimes we have to give up the comfort and familiarity of a secure situation, and leap forward embracing the unknown. Usually, though, the unknown offers fresh and possibly even superior options. Options we never would have known existed if we’d stayed within the snugness of our too-small lives. Though I can’t help but miss that world at times, especially when I realize just how dramatically everything has shifted, and the pangs of change strike my core, I have done the best possible thing for myself by moving here, and by starting over. My old life no longer fits.

.I am really ready for this new life, and all the feelings that will go along with it