World Not Made for People Like I

Sometimes I wonder where I fit into the grand scheme of things.

I’m laying in bed, with a backache, cramps and the desire to enter a coma for the foreseeable future. These can’t possibly be the daily moments of a functional person. I want nothing more than to sleep and hopefully wake up a new person, a stronger one.

By now I should have written at least 2 of the 7 motivation letters that I need to write for my graduate applications, but I’ve only my name whispered into the air.

I should be applying for jobs, but I’ve only the knowledge that I should.

I should practice my German, and probably do my homework as well, but alas I’ve barely the energy to keep my eyes open, and my nauseous stomach under control.

I hurt in places I shouldn’t, and I lack the energy I should have. It’s probably for these reasons that I read so many autobiographies from people afflicted as I. There’s no roadmap, or guide on how to deal with myself so I can deal with the world, and I’m sinking further into myself from the pressure.

On the outside all is serene, but on the inside, there’s a battle I’m always on the verge of losing. No one understands why my face has aged years, and why my body is riddled with ailments when my life is so great, so wonderful, so under control, but I know why. It’s my daily battle scars showing themselves for the public to see. No one knows how they got there because it’s an internal battle.

I’m searching for reasons, I’m searching for purpose. I don’t know where I’m going or how to get there.

I take every moment, one at a time, but every once in a while, I pan out and panic because I don’t know where I’m going or how to get there.

How am I supposed to interact with the world if this is how I’ll always be? My mind has it’s own set of rules and they don’t overlap with how I’m expected to live. I can’t make up my own bizarre timelines, bills can’t be paid when I want to or can, and jobs don’t understand when I’d rather die than get out of bed.

So, how do I live in world that wasn’t made for people like I?

Who you want to be

I’m sitting in Starbucks, wondering why I never learned how to be a well adjusted human being.

I don’t know how to socialize, and I don’t know how to be in groups.

I had a boyfriend who thought I might be autistic. I mean, I don’t know, maybe I am? I don’t know why I can’t just be how I want.

I remember growing up, I heard: You can be whoever you want!

What if I want to be extroverted? What if I want to enjoy social situations? What if I want to go out with a group of friends? What if I want to get along with people of my own gender? What if I don’t want to be who I am?!?

I can fake it and pretend to be someone I’m not, but I can’t stop myself from feeling how I feel or force myself to feel what I don’t feel.

I want what others have. That sense of belonging to their group of friends. I want to belong. I want to laugh, joke, cry and be with my “group” my “people”, but I don’t have them. I have friends, but I’m not the kind of person to thrive in a group, so I have no “group”.

I have so much, but not what I want…

What if I want to be someone else? Where does that saying start and where does it end?

You can be whoever you want to be, if you set your mind to it.

Life: A Continuum of Change

Life is a continuum of change. It’s not the big changes that change our lives, it’s the small insignificant changes that go unnoticed.

I’ve spent my entire life in search of adventure, passion, growth and change, and I’d never realized it was the small changes that have made the biggest impact in my life.

My parents divorce didn’t change me, losing trust in my father, gradually losing touch with my siblings, that’s what changed me. It’s the gradual changes that have the biggest impact.

Losing the love of my life? Being told I’m not the love of his life? That was okay, it felt earth shattering, but really it wasn’t. I’d love again one day.  You know what did impact me in ways I never knew? Not having him around, to read to me when I’m stressed, and not spending my nights philosophizing with him. The key aspects of who I was with him and who I ceased to be without him, those changed me, those impacted me, and I never gave them a moment of thought.

I thought a prince charming would save me, but you know what did save me?

• Being cognizant of my triggers
• Learning to be patient
• Cutting out negative people from my life
• Learning when to speak up and when to stay quite

You see, like everyone, I had to fall quite a few times, before realizing that life is always changing, it just changes so gradually that we hardly recognize it. I THINK that the small changes make the biggest impact in WHO I AM because they change me so gradually that I don’t even notice it. For better or worse, I’m hardly the person I once was, and that’s okay, because life is about growth, it’s a journey full of pain, struggle, happiness, and triumph. Remember life is a continuum of change.

Opportunity & Family

What is it about opportunity that makes us jump with glee and tremble in fear? The juxtaposition of the contrasting feelings creating waves of adrenaline within us. What is it about the new that washes over us with a befitting respect for all that’s been had, causing us to pause, to deliberate and on occasion to stay back in the old and familiar.

I can satiate my hunger and my passion, but I’ll have to leave my mother behind. It breaks my heart. We live at odds, but I don’t know what I’d do if she were gone. We’ve finally found a middle ground and it feels selfish to move along leaving her alone. I wish my success and my dreams didn’t cause her equal loneliness. She puts up a brave front, but I know she misses having family around. What to do? I don’t know… I wish I did.