Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH and most importantly, welcome back to another installment of A Voiceless Rant.
I am going to be 24-years-old in 2018. I am going to be graduating with my Masters in 2018. I will potentially get my first job in 2018. My life is going to make a complete 360 in the next year, and I’m not ready.
I’m definitely a creature of habit; when I’m comfortable, I tend to stay put. This year alone, I’ve been realizing that the things that made me feel like myself are slowly becoming distant. For the entire year, I thought was falling down the rabbit hole of depression to the point that I’ve been holding onto parts of myself that I don’t identify with, just for the sake of having one.
For the majority of the year, I felt like I wasn’t even a real person. I felt like I was just living each and every day without any purpose, without any motivation, without any drive. I’ve tried so many things to help me get back to the person I was a year ago and when I even got close to being that person again, it didn’t feel right, and I began to lose even more than I intended. Something’s gotta give, right?
As I’m now slowly transitioning into a healthier mindset, I realize this is potentially the start of a life-changing journey.
Do I sound non-sensical? When do I not? I can’t see the future and I don’t know if this will lead to anything, but it’s something you just feel. You look back at what life was like in the last couple of months and see from an outside perspective how you behaved and handled situations. Everything that I felt stems from the fact that my life is going through a transition from ‘student’ to ‘real-world adult’. I am preparing myself for the better, and undoubtedly the worst.
If you feel these things happening in your life, don’t worry. Things happen because they need to happen. Give it time and thought, yeah, but things naturally happen because they have to. You feeling this way is one thing, acknowledging it is a completely different thing.
1.) You feel the need to physically change something.
A year and a half ago, I had ombre hair. In March 2016, I decided to dye my hair all black. My black hair felt like the color I was going to keep for the rest of my life. It felt like my signature color because so many great things came with that hair. I felt like myself. When 2017 came, I didn’t feel like that person anymore. I felt like I was now wearing a wig of the old person I once was, the girl who was getting ready to graduate college with her bachelor’s, having a big group of friends in my acting class, and having a passion for cinema. For the majority of the year, I constantly bleached my hair and cut it really short just to feel like a different person. Two weeks later, I found myself buying black hair dye just so I “felt like myself again”. A month later, I would go through the same cycle. I am one of those women who changes their hair color and style whenever I feel like I need a change in life. I guess this last year alone I was afraid to let go of my comfort zone: long, black hair. I am now currently rocking chin-length ombre hair, and I feel like I am making it my own.
Also, I find myself wanting to lose weight, not because I’m lacking self-esteem or confidence, but I am starting to see and feel the potential health hazards that come with being overweight. I’m only going to be 24, but I am starting to feel like I’m 44, and I’m tired of feeling tired. In the recent weeks, I’ve considered getting weight loss surgery once I graduate in order for me to begin this new lifestyle change that I can’t do on my own. I mean, this is as life-changing as it’s going to get, but I want to get this done not just to “lose weight and look good”, but I want to feel good. I want to be able to move around like I’m in my 20’s. I want to actually live to see my 60’s. These little (or major) decisions to make to commit to physically change is as life-changing as it is. You change the way you live, and I feel myself wanting to accept that change coming my way.
2.) The things you tolerated before now annoy you, A LOT.
I was never a person who spoke up because I was never confrontational. For the most part, it worked, I just dropped things, but in a way it allowed people to treat me a certain way, and I would have no reaction to it. I always felt that I was able to fix things without actually sharing my side of things. I’ve been seeing that in the last year, I’ve definitely been more irritated and annoyed when people do that to me, and I never understood why all of a sudden, I was acting like that. I was growing tired of the fact that I felt people weren’t giving me the respect I know I deserve. Because of that, I lost a lot of people in my life in the last year. It’s still hard for me to stand up for what I feel and believe in because I hate arguing, but it’s needed to let others know that yeah, I’m cool, but don’t disrespect me in any shape or form and my voice matters just as much as yours.
3.) Your emotions are on a constant roller coaster.
Yeah, most of us will call it our hormones and PMS, but when it happens randomly at any time of the month, any time of the day over anything in your life, you begin to wonder what the hell is wrong with you. Ultimately, you may think that you’re just unhappy with life, but maybe you’re just realizing how to properly express how you feel. Just because you become more in touch with your emotions, doesn’t mean that feeling them and expressing them is a bad thing. Yes, there is a time and place for every emotion, but personally, I find myself feeling a lot more because, for years, I suppressed them. I always thought feeling too much was problematic so I would bottle them up until I forgot about them. But like everyone says: “bottling up your emotions doesn’t solve the issue.” This year I’ve cried more than the last three years combined, and I’m not ashamed of it.
4.) You are more aware of yourself; you are more in-tune with your soul.
This may sound weird, but I personally believe people who are going through this transition in their lives know themselves best. People who have their shit together got an idea of what they want, what they like, and how they react to situations, but I feel like, in this significant part of your life, you learn more about yourself. You go through different shit just to see how you react to it and handle it. You’re able to see yourself in an outside perspective. Because you are more aware of yourself, you are able to make decisions more efficiently; you begin to see what really in life makes you happy. The last couple of months have shown me that what makes me happy is the things I already had, or already was doing in my life: writing for TNTH, Obie, family, listening to some really good music, and honestly watching some Game Grumps. The simple things that I absentmindedly did or enjoyed before were now absolute cheer-me-ups once I acknowledged their uses for me. For example, a 2-hour long Game Grumps compilation of their funniest moments can instantly calm me down from an anxiety attack. It’s knowing how you respond to things in life and knowing what to do when put into a situation.
5.) You feel lost, or you don’t feel like you’re getting enough in life.
I think this is what made me realize that I might be possibly going through a transition in my life. I am constantly thinking about change. I know personally that whenever I think about change it’s because I feel lost or stuck in life. I feel like I’m not moving up to better myself or I feel like I’m not experiencing life to its full potential. I constantly think about finally graduating so that I can make TNTH a serious part-time job and going out into the world to find a full-time one. I am constantly thinking about traveling outside of the city to experience new scenery and hobbies. I am constantly thinking about where I want to be by the time I’m 30. Yeah, it’s great to live in the present and get things done now in order to get to where I want to be, but sometimes you need the break in order to move forward. Last weekend, I took an entire weekend off from school work and did the things I wanted to do (which was just a YouTube binge), but it felt good not to worry about school work for once in a really long time. Just because you have to go through hardships in order to get where you wanna be, it doesn’t mean you throw your happiness out the window.
Like I said: most of us are going to go through these major transitions where we feel like we’re changing for the worst. I felt like I was walking backward for most of the year because of it. If you allow yourself to think that way, you’re going to indulge in it some more. Misery loves company. Acknowledge how you’re feeling, and take into consideration why you feel like that. Think of it in a positive perspective. Think of it as getting to know yourself again. People change, you change, and it’s okay to feel like you are. Change is definitely a risk, but don’t be afraid to take it. Don’t sell yourself short.
-Liz. (:
Letters From Liz. 