About two months ago I took a two-week trip to my homeland Guatemala, and it was everything I thought it was going to be, and then some. But (very) long story short, I returned renewed and with a major attitude adjustment, and figured I would nag at the poor souls who wander into this blog for a little while.
Man, I cannot begin to tell you how difficult life's lessons have been for me growing up. Life is hard as a woman. Seriously, it is. Society throws so much shit at you all the time that you end up with a really convoluted mind and sense of identity, and that in turn keeps affecting everything you think and do. So all through my teens I couldn't wait to be in my twenties, and then all through my twenties I feared the approaching end of the golden age. Because for a woman, you are rarely ever worth as much as you are in your twenties.
Spoiler alert: I am no longer in my twenties. When it happened, I hated it so much. I moved back to the island on the last of my golden years, and it truly, honestly wasn't at all how I wanted to spend that last moment of true joy. I felt I had been robbed of my one final happiness. But it wasn't all about the twenties, to be honest. While I was in Europe, I had a chance to develop as a person, away from everyone who knew "me" as I used to be. I used the opportunity to begin a change in habits and to try and crack my mind open to understand and patiently consider conflicting realities. I was happy there, but of course all that head cracking plunged me into a borderline suicidal depression.
So that when "the event that shan't be named" (okay, exaggeration) occurred, I sort of just gave up. I had always thought I would peak in my thirties, mainly because I was a late bloomer who only got interested in boys and Guess jeans until I was like, fourteen instead of like, eleven like the normal girls. But when I moved back to Aruba, it felt like a set-back, and it automatically translated to "that thing back there that just ended was the peak." Uber-bummer. Society was right, my best years were behind me.
Despite the tragedy, life had to continue being lived I supposed, and having not too long ago learned the benefits of pop-Buddhism, I was determined to learn whatever life was trying to teach me asap so that I could move on. I sincerely encourage this approach. It took me about a year (during which I worked hard and succeeded at my job) to get over the shocking turn my life had taken, but with the help of the patient, ever-loving world, my attitude started improving. I purposefully looked for lessons in everything and tried to learn them as hard as I could, emotional toll be damned. And then life threw me a little support in the birth of my niece.
I started realizing that I didn't want to work all the time anymore, that I missed my family, that I was going to be a stranger to that baby if I kept working in retail. I started filling out job applications, but it took a year of only a couple of interviews here and there to finally land a job offer. I hurriedly quit my job, only to have the new job offer rescinded. I had only ever had one full-time job up until that point, and I had no idea that people could take the job offer back. Regardless, I had made up my mind and communicated to my previous boss that retail wasn't the life for me, so I was determined to not fall back.
I went on a couple more job interviews before I was given the chance of a lifetime at my current job, but even that hasn't been without it's challenges. The more I pushed myself, the more I saw how great the effort you have to make is when you want to change your life. I addressed my depression and started treatment. Even so, I was still struggling to adjust and to find a rhythm and a purpose within it all.
Then I went to Guatemala, and I found myself telling friends and family about my life, my apartment with my cats, my job, my relationships with my family and friends in Aruba. And just talking about it and hearing myself, I started realizing how truly blessed and lucky I have been this whole time. It was just that I've always surrounded myself with happy and lucky people that I had started to think my own life was lacking. But it's not.
And I promise you, your life is not lacking either. We've all heard "count your blessings" but how many of us actually do it? How many times a day, a week, a month, do you take time to actually think up all the people and things you really love and are thankful for? So stop feeling sorry for yourself. I know it's hard, but stop it. Take responsibility for the things you can change, get over the ones you can't, and start being grateful for all the things you're taking for granted. In a moment, it's all gone.
Every cloud has a silver lining, make that silver your crown.
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