Rants on Adulthood.

I have written eight posts in the last month, three have ended up as drafts and the others just got deleted for some strange reason. Now old me would have had an immediate reaction of anger and would definitely throw a tantrum and delete WordPress for a while until the emotions pass. But the me that I am now, allowed herself to feel the frustration, made sure my sister knew of my frustration so she could make me feel better and share in it and then, I took an hour to clear my headspace and figure out what next.

So I have come to the conclusion that the posts did not get deleted by chance but a higher power is at work that is prompting me to put out better and more candid content. Believing in a higher power makes everything simpler, it takes the burden of control and frustration from our shoulders and gives us the reassurance that everything is working out as it was intended to. It may seem rather dumb to unbelievers, but there’s nothing more comforting than knowing that something bigger than you is looking out for you.

This whole thing made me acknowledge that in our growing up it is easy to forget to look back and be grateful to our past selves for putting in the work and making us better every day. Getting to where we are has not been easy, overcoming certain mindsets and challenges has not been easy but we did it and continue to do it everyday. That is something that is worthy of praise.

Lately I’ve been finding myself thinking a lot about my future and the kind of adult that I want to be and if at all it measures up to the twenty one year old version of myself I had when I was twelve. I want to be a lot of things, the girl who takes pictures of sunsets and writes cheesy captions and the girl who goes for runs and drinks smoothies and is on top of her game. I want to be an author with books in hard and soft covers and audio. I want to be the activist who never gets tired of the cause, the dependable sister and daughter who can always be counted on. I want to be everything I admire and more.

When we dream of our futures as children, we dream of these well accomplished people who are vibrant, happy and doing what they love and killing it. Then we grow up, the dreams still there but buried at the backs of our minds because we realize that being true to who you are and staying to the course you had set out for yourself isn’t always easy and that life will rarely ever go as planned.

The realization that things don’t always work out as we want them and that we are not in charge is very often overwhelming. But we can either surrender ourselves to life and fate and have the mentality that we will do what we can and what we can’t will work itself out in our favor. Or like me, we can try to micromanage everything in our existence and when things don’t work out exactly as we want them to and in the same timeframes we envisioned, lose our shit and curse God and our lives.

Trusting that things will work out in our favor no matter what is not an easy thing to do.

I have just a few months to graduating school, and I remember how last year when my friends were graduating and they said how getting internships and jobs was not easy. I was thinking how when it was my turn that things would somehow workout, because for some reason I just like many others in the world would like to think that I’m special and that some struggles will always be reserved for others and not for me, but life is a unifier and I realized there’s nothing more frustrating than not being in control, than doing everything you can and nothing working out as you would have wanted. People don’t really talk about how no emotion hurts more than frustration. It’s like screaming into a void with no one there to validate or acknowledge your screams. Frustration hurts more than fear.

I wish more people talked about their struggles and their painful processes, not just the results. No one talks about the deep fear you feel in your stomach when you look around you and it seems everything is working out for everyone but you. Like the world is constantly moving but you’re stuck in this mark time march where nothing is happening for you and you seem to be failing at everything. How every day the possibility of you attaining the goals that you had promised yourself seems further and further into the future. I’ve been 21 for approximately a month and four days and I am already losing my shit about adulthood.

The pressure of the expectations we have on ourselves and that others have on us is exhausting. Then you go on social media and you see all these incredible things other people are doing at your exact same age and you feel completely worthless. Like your life doesn’t make any sense.

A friend once told me that comparison is the thief of joy, but I will also not come on here and be hypocritical and say that I do not compare my life to others. In theory we know comparison is a destructive habit, but how many people actually implement that in person in their day to day lives? Our world is so competitive, Darwin (or whoever) would argue that our survival depends on it.

So how do we navigate in a world where we want to be happy for others without asking ‘why me’? First, we have to acknowledge those feelings and process them and talk about it. Pretending to be completely unaffected by the success of others in comparison to our own is a lie, being affected is okay, how we deal with it is what sets us apart. We need to understand that everyone on earth is on an individual journey, that our journey’s are so different and we cannot all move at the same pace.

I’m learning to trust that what is mine, is mine and that in as much as I can do everything in my power to claim it, it will not arrive in the timelines that I demand it to, but in a time when it is most perfect for me. I am learning to make peace with these facts and some days it is easier than others, but I am constantly reminding myself that I do not have the power to micromanage every situation in my life, and in that lack of power I am finding freedom to seize the joys of everyday life.