On my 18th birthday, if you asked me where I thought I'd be when I turned 25 I can almost guarantee you that my answer wouldn't remotely resemble where I am in life right now. Divorced and moving out on my own for the very first time.
To be honest, I've never really enjoyed my birthdays. Almost every birthday I can think of is asterisked by a bad memory. When I turned 22 I had a complete mental breakdown because I felt like my life was happening around me and I was just along for the ride. Looking back I see the red flags clear as day, but I was young and naive and truthfully, I was too scared to acknowledge that I wasn't ready for the responsibility of what it meant to commit my life to someone else. Of course at the time I didn't realize that this was the source of my anxiety, my almost constant panic attacks, my fear of being alone for more than 20 minutes.
On my 24th birthday I took off my wedding rings and my life did a complete 180. I was resentful, and hurtful, and selfish, and I completely ignored the advice that the perils who love me were desperately trying to provide. I like to think I know why I made those decisions, and it took me a long time to accept responsibility for them and for the hurt that they caused.
The truth is I failed, and that is something I never want to do again. I'm human. I know that I'm not perfect and that I will undoubtedly make mistakes in my life. But I'm not going to run from them. I want to be a better person than I was last year. Hell, I want to be a better person than I was yesterday.
The first quarter of my life taught me a lot about failure and accepting responsibility. It also taught me who was going to be mad as hell at me but love me through my mess anyway. It taught me about humility and that it's okay to ask for help.
Truth be told I have no idea what comes next, but I have a pretty good feeling about the second quarter.
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