In the interest of not putting my “best self” on social media and cultivating my online persona so you think I’m cool and quirky and not a big ol' box of anxieties, I’m having an inwardly rough week, so I’m going to tell you about it whether you like it or not.
Stagnancy is one of my greatest fears. I hate the idea of settling, of “alright.” I don’t confuse contentment with complacency, but there’s a difference between being content because you’re where you want to or should be, and being content because you’re scared of doing anything else. You can be content while being uncomfortable.
But the problem is I’m just uncomfortable. I’ve been trying to create newness for myself in multiple areas of my life, but I’ve continually been met with (admittedly often self-induced) frustration. I’m afraid of being the kind of uncomfortable that isn’t “being challenged,” but just “being unhappy.” It’s like trying to scale a wall without having any footholds to start with. I want to be halfway up the wall, I want to be looking for the next place to step—I want to be that kind of uncomfortable, the kind where you know you’re going somewhere, maybe you don’t know where, but you're growing and tackling something new—but I’m still at the bottom. And I don’t seem to have the right shoes, and my climbing gear is starting to chafe.
The past few days I've been overcome with self-doubt, the irony of which is that it makes me become more self-loathing because I hate being the kind of person (i.e., a human) who second-guesses herself. I've always been extremely self-directed and independent, but lately it's become tiresome, and I'm sick of motivating myself; I just want someone to guide me through it or maybe just hold my hand and pat it gently but mostly stand up at the top of the wall and shout down step-by-step instructions to me and give me a hard push forward.
I am not a patient person. I'm constantly struggling to balance patience with being proactive, but neither nor the balance of both has proved successful. Maybe this is just what being in your twenties feels like, or maybe this is what life will always be like during the interims of being where you want to be, but I'm exhausted and overwhelmed and discouraged. I'm constantly telling myself You're tougher than you think! And I know it's true, but I don't always believe it, especially when I'm crying in the car on the way home from yoga after I haven't gone in weeks, where I can't even twist myself into basic positions.
The solution doesn't seem to be more yoga or more proactivity or more patience or both or switching into autopilot or settling. It feels like there is no solution, or I suppose maybe I've yet to find it. It just sucks, and I know it won't always, but right now the suck feels too big to not write as catharsis in this blog and be generally bummed out and maybe eat some (or all) of the chocolate I keep in my desk drawer for "emergencies."
