Finding My Silver Lining - Part 1

Some people have said that I seem older than my age. Personality profiles define me as a dreamer, a forward-thinker. Some days, this is a gift. But often times it's not.

I've always had a hard time being satisfied with the present, with seeing the beauty in the here and now. Even as a child, I had this sort of time-space wanderlust, always imagining what I could achieve and who I could be. Always reaching for what’s ahead, wanting to be older, wiser, more established. I wanted to be 24, the magic age when I for some unknown reason thought everything would come together—graduate college, get married, have children and be established with an incredible, fulfilling career in which I made the big bucks and everyone knew my name. 

Life would be perfect.

I'm also *gasp* a perfectionist. I generally don't worry about small day-to-day things, like if the house is a mess or if I'm having a bad hair day, but I've always longed for perfection in the grand scheme of things. I pour my heart and soul into my work, and I strive for everything I put my name on to be flawless. Likewise, I've always wanted to achieve the perfect life—to be gleefully happy, find the perfect career and marriage, and to be known for achieving greatness. Naturally, life hasn't turned out to fit the fantastical mold I once envisioned, and for a while, the reality of this kind of tore me up inside. 

I felt the universe was working against me despite all my efforts and all my plans. Relationships were rocky. Money was tight. Friendships failed. Freak health issues landed me in the hospital. I made some big mistakes to try to cope, and dark ghosts rose up to haunt my mind and spirit through it all. All of this stressed me out, and I developed a bad mix of anxiety and depression. Not to mention terrible self image. I had a lot of things going for me, but the struggle of life gave me the illusion that I had failed, fallen short of the line I’d drawn for myself over a decade prior. 

I started to become neurotic, always worrying in excess about what would go wrong next... 
Did I lock the car and set the alarm? 
What if someone breaks into my apartment? Are all the deadbolts locked? 
Did I close the refrigerator before I left the house? Better go back and make sure... I have a feeling I left it open. 
Is my family ok? What if that dream about my mom being held up at gunpoint was a premonition and not just a nightmare? 
What if someone dies in a car crash today? 

What if I die today? Well, at least that would be relief from all this...

I know now that it was me grasping for control and perfection in my world of self-perceived failure and fearing what the universe would throw at me next. But all of this uncontrollable anxiety and worry wore me out to the point that I felt so exhausted I didn't even want to get up off the couch or out of bed. I was worrying about EVERYTHING and wanting to do nothing. I was giving up, becoming dead inside, and no one knew it but me. 

I could never let on what was going on in my head. People might think I was crazy or something. Can't have that.

In retrospect, I can clearly see that it's ridiculous that I let a 10-year-old’s fantasies determine my life plan and my self-worth. It’s ridiculous the absurd level of disappointment I felt when some magic fairy didn’t come along to grant all my wishes. I’m not sure why I thought that life could be so easily manipulated, but I suppose I took the phrase, “you can do anything you set your mind to,” much too literally. I carried those visions with me for much too long, until they were bound to my bones. 

At age 24, I found myself lost in what used to be, and should have still been, a sea of hope and possibility. For the first time in my life, I felt that I had no vision and no direction. My depression and fear of failure gave me a blindness to all the blessings I had and that the universe and God had a greater plan for me than I had developed for myself. But I was blessed. I had a family with unconditional love and support for me, and a wonderful man who loved me through it all and who would eventually become my husband. 

And it is love that would write the story of my future.

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