How Can You Grow in Seconds? It’s Possible.
I’ve been putting myself out there a lot. I’ve been going out, meeting new people, trying to make new friends, and committing to new relationships. I still have a lot of anxiety and overthink many social situations. I’ve built a circle of women friends who have active lives and things that happen to them.
Here’s the thing. This is one of the first times in my life where I don’t have drama going on. And by drama I mean stuff like: friends going off the deep end, having crazy nights of my own, having fucked up intimate partnerships, and spiraling into depression. I don’t have things that happen to me. Nothing is particularly sexy in my life. I don’t have places I need to be socially. My work environment is small, the stimuli are few, and I usually only work with two people max at any given time.
Life is a bit isolated as I try to find my place in the daytime as a sober person trying to meet people. But here’s the thing. My friends’ lives are so full of energy, action, and good and bad things happening. I mean, things happen to them! I am living my past vicariously through them. But I hear their stories and go oh shit as my internal voice responds to their stories in my head.
During lunch recently, here’s what a few seconds of thoughts looked like, and the massive growth I had because of my realizations. I was listening to my friend, responding to her in my head:
“I don’t do that anymore.”
“That situation doesn’t resonate with me anymore.”
“That’s never happened to me.”
“I don’t fuck with people like that.”
“Fuckboys — why even?”
“Omg — WHAT???”
Let me get to the point. While I notice these things occurring in the present lives of my friends, I notice these things don’t happen to me anymore, at least not for a long stretch of 7 months. There are so many things I don’t have in common with people because I’ve deleted things from my life (like drinking). In this realization, clarity came. I am so lucky to have these things NOT happen to me. I am so lucky that I have never had to walk a mile in their shoes. BUT — crazy part is, I’m not sure a lot has happened TO me in the past. I just don’t know that I’ve ever experienced some things to the depths that other people have.
It hit me. In the past, I didn’t have the external world driving bad things to me. I actually did an excellent job at manifesting those negative experiences all on my own.
While I’ve been lucky that the external world hasn’t fully given me a beat down…it’s unfortunate that the only person that’s ever truly given me a beat down is myself, my bad decisions, and the consequences thereof.
While I sit at lunch with my friends feeling grateful that I no longer experience some of the things they are going through, it is BITTERSWEET to recognize that I was the one who put myself through horrible situations in the past, all on my own.
I still live with myself, right. But I’m not the same person — I don’t make the same self-destructive decisions anymore. I have evolved beyond being my own worst enemy. I just wanted to take the time to capture this moment of growth for myself. I am very proud I have become my own mom, my own friend, and am (mostly) no longer an enemy to myself.
