Category: Voiceless Rant: The Series

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz.

This time of year, I’m reminded of my past a lot. I deem myself a walking calendar, and when something has affected me or my life in a negative way, I’m bound to remember it. It’s a blessing and a curse; a blessing because I have a pretty good memory, but a curse because people think that it holds more significance in my life than it does. In the past, I’ve been scolded so much about not remembering my past as accurately as possible, that nowadays it’s the hardest fucking to do.

While May is still one of my favorite months out of the year because of the warmer weather and kickstart to the summer, It’s one of the hardest months to mentally get through because a lot of that traumatic shit happened around this time of year.

But fuck being silent about it.

With that being said, here’s this month’s installment of:

I talk a lot about my 18th year because a lot of dark shit happened that year. Eight years later and I still carry that baggage around me every now and then, but slowly I’m letting it go and forgiving myself the more I talk about it. My therapist, Cathy, told me one of the most important things that I think I’ll carry for the rest of my life: “by talking about it, you’re diffusing the energy behind it.”

So, hi. This is me using this month’s voiceless rant to go on a rant about some things that I’m learning to let go of.

Eight years ago in May, many things happened. After 5 months of emotional abuse and death threats, I let Person #2 back into my life because I was still in love with them. The thing was, I was already interested in another person, Person #3; a new person that didn’t know who I was or what I was at my high-school because from the hours of 4pm through 7pm at an after-school workshop, I was just Liz. I wasn’t “Liz, the slut” or “Homewrecking bitch Liz” or “Liz, the girl with the cut marks on her arms”.

Balancing Person #3, then Person #2, and then Person #1 was a lot for me, but I didn’t complain. For once in 5 months, I felt like people were finally looking at me, liking me, and giving me the validation and attention that I desperately wanted. I was 18 and lonely, what can I say?

Person #2 didn’t really last long in my life. Sure, they had a hold on me and I spent my time with this person every now and then, but I was finally at a place where I wanted to leave everything behind and start new with someone who was interested in me and single. Spending the first day with Person #3, I kissed them. Big mistake. It gave them a perception of me that I was trying to avoid with them. Slowly, the person I was trying to keep away from this person started to seep through. I trusted this person way too quickly, told them my issues, and how heartbroken I was with Person #1 since I was in love with them but always felt like their second choice. They even told me a story about a long-distance lover they had, which at the time thought was the sweetest thing. Person #3 and I were just two lost souls, and I guess their company felt right. Until it wasn’t.

I made a stupid move traveling across the city to see them one day. I even remember the only reason I went was because Person #1 hurt me so bad two nights before that I just wanted to let them go, and let Person #2 go as well. I lied to them, I lied to my family, and anything could’ve happened. Of course, I didn’t think that a person I barely knew would do anything that would later on stay with me for the next 7 years.

I didn’t go over their house to have sex. Make out? Sure. Kiss some more? Sure. I was fucking depressed, and all I wanted was to enjoy someone else’s company. When Person #3 and I started to make out, we took it to their room, and that’s when things got intense. Sure, the making out was fun, I won’t deny that, but they clearly had another thing in mind.

They were trying to get through my buttoned-up jeans and touch me, despite me saying no. They called it stubbornness and playing “hard to get” or a tease, I call it I don’t want to have sex with you because I don’t know you and I value my personal morals. I don’t know how many times I told them no, that no I didn’t wanna touch them back, that this isn’t what I wanted, and I don’t know how they stopped trying. At 18, I didn’t think much of it and didn’t walk out of their house scared. Uncomfortable, yeah, but not scared for my life. As I got older, I realized that one of the reasons it took me so long to reconcile this in my head was because I simply wanted to forget it. After a while, I dissociated from it. I felt like I was betraying the love I had for Person #1, but also I realized just how lucky I was to get out of that fucking house the way I did. Without knowing Person #3 that well, god forbid they could’ve assaulted me. Who really knows what could’ve happened?

I recall this day because it was the catalyst for a lot of my issues after that. I lied about it a lot of times when the topic was brought up – to the point where I couldn’t even remember my own lies. I was a scared, naive teenager that didn’t want the one person I loved to leave me. Let’s call a spade a fucking spade. Little by little, the truth would come out, but one thing stayed consistent in my story: I didn’t have sex with Person #3. I wish I was stronger back then to stick my ground and just have a “take me or leave me” mentality, but I really wanted this person to believe me not only because it was the truth, but because I didn’t want their image of me to be tarnished.

I vaguely remember 5 years later that I told the entire truth to them. I hoped that this day that I regretted since it happened would disappear and be a thing of the past, but somehow it came up at every chance it could. I thought that coming clean would end it for good. Mentally I was in a better place and I was a better person than my teenage years, but it never seemed like it was enough.

I found out years later that Person #3 spread some rumors about me. They said I did this, I did that, and that they took “Person #1’s bitch” from them. If it wasn’t bad enough, I now had to battle rumors similar to those that were spread while I was a teenager. For a while, I felt like I was just deemed this person that people thought I was and no matter how much I grew and learned from my mistakes and even took responsibility for my actions, it was never enough. This me was never enough because the version that was always lingered in my life. It followed me to my 20’s, and it followed me to this post.

I don’t blame anyone for what happened in my past. I’m not here to point fingers and say I turned out this way because of this person and this situation. I’m way more forgiving than I believe I am, but it doesn’t mean that I easily come to terms that I “deserved” for this moment in my past to follow me to the point where I felt like I always had to remember it minute-to-minute.

A lot of things happened during my 18. What happened because Person #2 and I is forgiven and let go on my end. I chose to let that and them go because it was time and it didn’t affect me the way it once did. It was about time I forgave them (not literally but figurately) for myself, own my responsibilities for my actions and dumb decisions, and it has officially become a thing of the past. Person #3, although I do not have contact or any means of communication with this person, is more of a situation rather than the person I need to let go of. I don’t give a shit about this person, but the situation at hand is one I’m slowly trying to work on and diffuse because it was something I was forced to carry for years on end. As for Person #1, I’m currently working on that forgiveness and letting them go figurately as we speak.

I write this not to expose anyone or to put people’s business out there. It’s my story to tell, and it’s something that I always wanted to talk about for the sake of my own mental health. I talk about it now because I know what my worth is. I know I’m not anyone’s property or territory, I’m not this lost chick that lost herself in the people around her years ago, and I’m not my fucking past. 

So this year, this particular month, I am using my voice to finally speak out on something that I kept ranting to myself for years on end. Don’t judge me for who I was, what I did, and for the journey that got me here. Judge me for the now, the present, and for the version of myself standing in front of you at this moment.

Here’s to the loudest voice I’ve had on “A Voiceless Rant”.

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks not just for me but for the entire world. With COVID-19 rapidly spreading and the United States (especially New York State) being one of the hardest places that the virus has hit, it’s been nothing but rough, stressful, and frustrating not knowing what our next move is.

As I’m writing this, as a whole we are close to hitting 1 million cases of COVID-19, and by the time this is published on the blog only God knows how many more cases will there be, which is scary.

Before we continue, let’s introduce this month’s installment of:

Personally, it’s kind of crazy how much I’ve digressed mentally between last month’s installment of this series and this month’s post. It’s made me realized just what keeps me happy, and it’s honestly having a routine and some productivity in my life. Having those two things allows me to concentrate on the task at hand and my present surroundings instead of being in my head 24/7, constantly overthinking things.

Now that those two things are now non-existent due to COVID-19, I find myself coming victim to what I expect to be what a lot of people are experiencing: depression.

The depression I am feeling feels very similar to the one I felt all of last year when I didn’t have the schedule and routine I depend on now. I was home for most of my weeks, I was unemployed trying to find a job that would hire me, and I had a lot of time to overthink everything and be inside my head for days on end.

Of course, I have to remind myself that no matter what, we will get through this — that I will get through this — and I’m not alone in this process. Not only do I not have control of what’s going on, everyone else is in the same boat, and the only thing we can control at a time like this is how we take care of yourselves. We can keep our mental health intact by making sure you are keeping in contact with the people you care for as well as keeping your mind as focused and concentrated as possible! Personally, for me, I try to keep in contact with my coworkers and very few friends here and there to just feel like my relationships aren’t being compromised during this pandemic and if that means that I have to make the first move and hit them up, then just so be it. 

Personally, I am keeping my mind focused and busy by writing. Not only am I writing letters for the blog, but I am getting around to start writing for the academic journal article that I started last year! Although this method isn’t for everyone (if you simply don’t feel motivated or well enough to pick up a new skill or work on a passion project, that’s perfectly fine) and remember that we are all different and we all cope differently! Personally, for me, I feel my happiest when I’m busy and productive and working on something or towards something. Because I control my emotions, I’m going to do what’s best for them.

I hope everyone is going through this scary time as taking care of themselves because honestly, that’s all we can control in life. Sure, things may not go our way and the simplest things are now some of the most stressful things to do, but we just have to go through the motions, and that includes how we react to whats going on around us and how we take care of our mental health as well as our physical health.

Stay safe, and take care!

Dear, guys – Welcome back to Letters From Liz!

New month, new letters, new adventures, and a new installment of:

We are just jumping into it this month! 2020 thus far has been such a great year; between the new experiences I’m having, new milestones I’m hitting for myself, and the work I am doing to forgive myself and my past, it’s been bittersweet.

Back in January, I was able to go to my first Kpop concert by myself, in February I went out with some of my coworkers for a happy hour, and now in a couple of weeks, I’ll be traveling to Florida to see one of my closest friends, Tori, for the first time. It’s things like this that make me feel proud of the progress I’ve made within the last year; it’s crazy to think that this time last year I was just this anxious mess of a person that just felt really lonely for most of my days.

If I didn’t believe this before, I truly believe in it now: everything happens for a reason. My last chapter of life had to end in order to begin this new chapter. I started my job at the bookstore six months ago, I made some great friends in the process, gained some confidence when talking to customers, made moves to make new friends, and starting to work on myself, by myself, for myself.

Therapy has played a major role in this transformation, to be honest. As I mentioned a couple of hundred times, I’m using my therapy sessions to talk a lot about my past to diffuse the energy it still has on me so that I can learn to forgive myself and move on with my life. Since then, there have been plenty of opportunities that disguised itself as a fresh start and something new, but still had many of the undertones of who I was in my past and I really had to remind myself that I deserve better and I deserve respect, and not just from others but from myself as well.

Sometimes, I don’t remember the person I was because she feels like a distant memory. She feels like a different entity like she lived in someone else’s body and I only know of her by observing her from the outside. She feels like someone I haven’t known for a while, and maybe I haven’t – it has been a half of year already, but it doesn’t even feel like I’ve only known this version of myself for that short period of time.

I feel like I’ve known her my whole life.

I feel like this is the version of myself that I knew I was always supposed to be and wanted to be, and once I got here, I feel like I don’t know who and how I was before now. Sure, I know how passive I was and how anxious and depressed I was as well (and there’s always going to be parts of myself that have those traits embedded in me), but if I’m this far into this transformation, then I feel like I can do anything.

So, three months into 2020 and it’s going better than I expected. Of course, things can happen because that’s just how life is, but at least I’m mentally in a better place in order to handle whatever comes my way. I’ve had my fair share of really good years and thought that I was cured of the sadness and anxiety that I’ve always carried with me, not knowing that I was even carrying it around. This time will be different.

This time, I’m working on myself while trying to live my best life. I’m learning to break out of old habits so that this time around, I don’t allow bad things to affect me as severely as they used to. I want to learn how to process things as they happen, analyze them (as much as I can in a healthy matter) and ask myself what can I possibly learn from this experience to make me a stronger person. I have my whole life ahead of me, so sadness is inevitable. 

This time is different.

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

New month, new goals, and new opportunities to make this month yours. Personally, for me, February has always been a rocky month for me; family deaths, pet deaths, relationship deaths, you named it and it happened during the month of February. Last year around this time, I spent the majority of the month in this huge fight, so needless to say: I hope 2020’s February has a different outcome.

I’m hopeful and confident that it will be because I now have control over my own life and my emotions are not tied to surrounding things and people that may affect it. I don’t say in a nasty way, but I’ve had years of experience on “thinking about everyone else besides myself” and to some extent I still do, but this time it’s different. I’m truly on my own this time. I am in control of my own destiny, my own decisions, and how things can go.

Hi, welcome to this month’s installment of:

A lot is happening; a good type of “a lot”, and I believe it’s because I’m finally doing things the way I want to do them. No more worrying about what others may think, no more thinking my decisions are always wrong; no more feeling shameful or guilty for doing what’s best for me. I promised myself that this year would be the year that I said yes to the things that once scared me or made me second guess myself. I decided to go to my very first Kpop concert in the city by myself, I had my appointment with the bariatrics specialist, I might be making a trip to Florida to see my college friend; even the minor things that are happening within my life are happening because I chose for them to happen. Of course, that doesn’t exclude the things that are out of my control, but I least have a say in how to let certain things in my life affect the way I live it.

I’m simply learning how to be on my own after being emotionally dependent on everyone around me. For years, the opinions of friends, lovers, family, and even strangers affected the way I perceived myself and the way I made decisions for myself. Now, I’m not saying that people put a gun to my head and forced me to see things their way, I always had a mind of my own, but the opinions of others influenced the way I saw myself. For example, people saw me as the happy, bubbly, outgoing one when I was younger, so when I started to become depressed, more irritated at times, and experience social anxiety, I couldn’t accept myself for simply being human because I felt like I had to live up to the expectations of everyone in my life. After a while, (and I mean years of doing shit like this), I simply found myself being tugged in two different directions. One way, I was trying to meet the expectations of everyone in my life while my declining mental health and the need to start taking care of myself was tugging me the other way. It was a battle I was never going to win, in all honestly.

Were some of my actions during this time in my life toxic to those around me? Most definitely. Did I hurt people along the way? Absolutely. Could I have done things differently? To some extent, sure. And it’s these things that I’m still trying to reflect about myself and try to come out of it a better person. Maybe some of the people I hurt I didn’t deserve at this point in time. Maybe I needed this time of self-reflection and reconstruction to learn how to take care of yourself and take care of others in a healthy way, without neglecting my own needs, without losing myself in the process.

So these things like going out to a concert by myself, going to the bariatrics doctor by myself, and making every other decision by myself because I want to and not have people judge me or tell me otherwise is simply just some of the results coming from practicing self-awareness, self-confidence, and self-respect. I’m going to do what I feel like is best for me at this moment because isn’t that what matters the most? Living in the present? Being present? Taking life for what it is at this moment? Why dwell on the past and why worry about the future so much? If I’m not happy with the version of myself I am now, how do you expect me to be happy in the future and grow?

Listen, Ms. RuPaul once said, “if you don’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else?”

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

2019 feels like it came and went, yet it also feels like I’ve been living in 2019 for a whole decade. A lot of things happened this year, and it’s truly crazy to see where I’m at, 11 months into it.

This year, my 25, has been a rollercoaster for me. It has constantly felt like I’ve been on the top of the world, and there were times when I hit rock bottom. If I had to sum up the year, I would say that this year was very cathartic. 25 has taught me some life lessons I think I will carry for a lifetime and it’s also made me reflect on some of the resolutions I had for this year.

With that being said, it’s time for this month’s installment of:

As I reflect on the year, I remember where I was this time last year. Did I have high expectations for the new year? Did I think my issues and problems would vanish once the new year came around? Will anything drastic happen in the new year that will change my life forever? Honestly, we just don’t know what our future holds, and to hold the new year accountable for things to be good is an unrealistic way of thinking. It’s why many of our new year resolutions don’t last for too long, and it’s why many of us feel disappointed once the new year doesn’t go the way we wanted it to go.

For my “resolutions” for 2019, I wanted this year to be peaceful and for me to be happy. I wanted this year to be completely different than what 2018 was, and boy was I in for an even more stressful ride this year. I had some issues handling my mental health, I got out of an extremely long relationship, I got a new job, and I figured out that I was demiromantic. It was a lot of self-discovery and acceptance this year that I was not ready for.

In other words, nothing about this year was “peaceful” in the slightest bit.

Just because your resolutions don’t go as planned, it doesn’t mean that the year was a waste. Sure, you didn’t get to lose weight you wanted to lose. Sure, you didn’t get to go on an out-of-state vacation. Sure, you didn’t get the happiness and peace of mind that you wanted. You might not have gotten the things you wanted, but every year truly happens the way it does because it needs to happen that way. Maybe you had to have a year like this to mature and experience some growth within yourself.

At 25, at this moment, I am the happiest I could possibly be for myself. I feel at peace in some aspects of my life, I’m working a job I really enjoy and look forward to going to every morning, I’m prioritizing myself in ways I didn’t do, and I’ve just trying to find what makes me, me. I didn’t have any idea that 2019 was going to be that year for me, but maybe I needed this to happen this way in order to keep growing and thriving and to get closer to the person that I always wanted to be.

So, I’m not upset that my resolutions for 2019 didn’t work out for me, I’m actually quite glad they didn’t! If this year turned out the way that I wanted it to be, I wouldn’t have learned everything that I did about life, myself, mental health, and everything else I learned through my hardships. If anything, my New Years’ resolutions somewhat came true: I am at peace and I am happy 11 months in. So, I can only hope that I can enter 2020 with the things I’m learning and that I can enter it in a peaceful state of mind, as well as a happy one!

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz.

Can I be honest with you guys? This week has been mentally draining for plenty of reasons. Despite it being that time of the month which always leaves me in some sort of depressive episode, this week particular is a hard one to get through without reflecting and feeling immensely sad. I’m grateful that this week, out of all weeks, I’ll be at therapy, talking things out, in hopes that talking to someone about these thoughts and feelings will help me get through the rest of the week.

With that being said, I want to talk about some deeper things in this month’s installment of:

Let’s just say I’ve been dreading for this time to come, and no distractions will be able to help me out around this time.

The past couple of months have been honestly a test of survival for me. It’s been a test of being alone, living my life day-by-day, without the things in it that were crucial parts of my days. It’s like when a part of your routine just stops happening, it feels like you hit this reset button on your life and now you don’t remember how it felt like to have certain parts of your day in your day anymore. 

I have to be honest with you all: I don’t know how I’ve made it this far without being self-destructive. Maybe it’s therapy reminding me that I’m worth more than I think I am and that things do get better. Maybe it’s the routine I’ve developed at my job that has now given me some sort of distraction from the negative thoughts in my head. Maybe I’m just learning how to get day-by-day with just me to comfort myself.

At the beginning of this major change, I was having suicidal thoughts and self-harmed one night after sitting in my thoughts. Since then, I’ve made a safety plan with my therapist in order to help prevent myself from self-harming again, but I can’t sit here and say that I’ve been willing to actually sit myself down and process everything that has happened in the last couple of months.

It’s like I’m scared of opening up my bottled emotions because the mess will be too big for me to clean up. But, I feel like I’m just filling up that bottle more by not allowing myself to feel these things.

I’m afraid of crying over my loss. I’m afraid that I will miss the person I was before my major loss in my life. I’m afraid of even moving forward and being okay because my heart is still so tied up in this major loss. I’m also afraid that my safety plan won’t work, and that I will end up hurting myself.

So, I decided to distract myself and protect myself from myself by not allowing myself to reflect, which is not good.

I don’t know when I started to become fearful of feeling, but it’s like every time I start to feel any sort of emotion that’s sadness, I immediately hold back and distract myself until I just forget about it. And I’m aware that I’m doing that because then I won’t have these moments when I ask myself if I’m just faking that I’m alright or am I really alright.

If I have to ask myself that question, chances are it’s the former.

My point being is that I need to learn how to process my emotions without fearing for the worst; I have to stop thinking that if my emotions spill out and fall all over, I’m bound to cut myself so bad that I’ll end up in the hospital. I’m not even exaggerating. It’s honestly times like this that I wonder if I’m actually getting better for if I’m just masking my true nature really well. Like, I’m surprised that I haven’t resorted to alcohol or drugs to help me not feel things anymore. I’m surprised I haven’t got addicted to anything harmful just so I wasn’t able to process my major loss. But, I’m also very upset that I’ve allowed myself to completely mask how I truly feel about this major event in my life. 

I don’t know if there are any of you like me out there, but if there are, I hope you allow yourself to start feeling again. I hope that you stop sitting on your emotions in hopes that you’ll just forget about them as time progresses. I hope that whatever is troubling you this week that you get through it in one piece, with at least one genuine smile, and with at least one genuine good day under your belt.

I hope I am able to start processing my emotions, even if it temporarily leaves me in a bad headspace. Things like this are not meant to be easy, especially when it’s your first time going through something major in your life.

난 당신이 그리워요.

Things will get better.

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

First and foremost, a new month means a new opportunity to make the best out of it, and create new memories, make new goals, and even have more opportunities for growth!

If you’re anything like me, you will know that today marks an important day of the year. Yes, it is July 2nd, which means that we have officially hit the halfway mark into the year.

Ladies and gentlemen of Letters Readers, here’s this monthly installment of:

Happy 2 years since “A Voiceless Rant” was first published on the blog! During the month of July 2017, the first installment of the series — which was meant to just be a one-off — came to life! Now 2 years later, it’s still some of my favorite things to write for the blog. 

For this month, I wanted to talk about something that at this point of the year, people don’t think about it: those damn new year’s resolutions. I’ve expressed many times before on the blog that I necessarily don’t believe in new year’s resolutions because it seems as if they are everyone’s priority for the first few weeks of the new year, and once that fresh, new year feeling has long passed, people seem to be back on their bullshit.

So, let me ask this question to those who’ve made new year’s resolutions this year: how are they coming along?

If you lost sight in your resolutions, don’t feel ashamed, nor like a phony for believing in that whole “I have to stick to my resolutions as soon as I declare them” tale.

This year, I made a couple of resolutions that I forgot to check in with after a while because it’s life, and life isn’t really happening to us so linear. It takes us in different directions, our viewpoints are bound to change throughout the year, and yes, we do change within months! So, why would you remember a resolution you made before knowing what the year had in store for you?

Hell, let’s make some damn “middle of the year resolutions” since we’ve got a pretty good taste of how it’s going for us!

Although I didn’t make any new year’s resolutions personally this year, I always hope that a new year helps me become a better, happier, and more mature person than I was the year before. This year, in particular, I just wanted to be in a mentally better place than I was in last year and I’m thankful that at least that’s the one thing on my 2019 bucket list that’s actually going as planned.

So, for my middle-of-the-year resolutions, I want to continue to be on the path of self-discovery, self-growth, and still be accepting of who I am and what I am. Of course, I’m still looking to better myself, come in terms with some of my traumas and demons, and start getting myself to be more productive and active towards my career goal. I hope that I could end this year having to at least scratch the surface of these things, but nevertheless, still be proud that the overall year I’ve done some positive growth since making these resolutions for myself.

So, revamp those new year’s resolutions to now fit where you are at in life. Try to knock something off small, like going out more and socialize with people. Or even smaller, like getting out of bed before noon every single day. Do what feels right for you, challenge yourself if you’re up for it, it’s your damn life. 

I hope everyone has a good second half of the year! Enjoy the summer! Get excited for Halloween! Start singing some damn Christmas songs! Whatever floats your boat. 🙂

 

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

How is everyone enjoying June so far? Schools almost out, vacations are around the corner, and Summer 2019 officially rings in this week!

With that being said: a new month means a new installment of…

So, here’s a little backstory for the inspiration of this post: I was scrolling through my Instagram explore page and read a screenshot Twitter thread story (by TOBINSCO) about a man who decided to treat himself out one night to a five-star restaurant. He orders his meal but notices that the group of people that arrived before him ordered, and received their meals before he did. Wondering where his meal is, he asked the waiter that he’s been in the restaurant longer than the group in front of them have and hasn’t received his meal yet. The waiter responds, “Sir, your meal is being prepared by the top chef in the restaurant; your meal is special.” Not too long after, the top chef and 6 waiters come out with his meal, changed his simple order into a special one, and found out that the owner of the hotel that the restaurant was in was a long lost family member and was so happy to see this man’s face. He concludes the thread by stating:

Relax and wait for your meal. The owner of the world has seen you and doesn’t want you to be served a simple meal. You’re waiting long because yours is a special meal.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you that just because yours hasn’t arrived yet, doesn’t mean it isn’t going to. It’s just taking more time to get to you, but at the end of the day, it will come. And I honestly have to keep telling myself that during this time in my life.

Personally, I’ve been really impatient about my “break-through” and quite frustrated about it for various reasons. A lot of it has to do with the fact that you see everyone you know living their “best lives” and growing into themselves, and it just feels like my “best life” is taking forever to come. Many of us may feel this way, shoot even the people who are portraying their lives on social media as “their best” may not feel that’s even their best in real life, and I know for a fact that there are people who look at me and may think I’m living my best life for the accomplishments I’ve made as a 25-year-old. In a nutshell, we all think other people are living their best lives and never believe that we are making any progress in our own lives. We are making progress even if we don’t see it, but we always want more, and we always want to feel like our hard work is paying off. 

So, when opportunities are guided towards our way, we tend to think that maybe, just maybe, this is the thing we need to feel that sense of accomplishment, or taking that big of risk could open another layer of our lives to the point of life-changing. Recently, I was guided towards an opportunity that I definitely had to think long and hard for: is this really what I want to do? Is this my big break? Is this just another lesson of life that will bring me closer to my break-through? Will it just be a big mistake? The questions are endless. And even then, I’m not even sure if this would be the right thing for me to do.

Not all opportunities are meant to be life-changing, but ALL opportunities are meant to help you grow and guide you towards the path where your “special meal” is.

Lemme explain.

A lot of the opportunities I’ve had in the past, whether or not I took them, helped me find out the things I’m now passionate about, connect me with some really awesome people to work with, and are even possibly leading me in the direction that I ultimately belong in. Long story short, if I didn’t take those two summer classes during my junior year of college, I wouldn’t have graduated on time; if I didn’t get rejected from the graduate film school I applied for AND if I didn’t take the opportunity to get my Master’s degree at my college, I wouldn’t have gotten my Master’s, I wouldn’t have learned what I did in those courses, I wouldn’t have written the MA Thesis that I did, and I now wouldn’t have gotten the chance to work on and publish my thesis in an academic journal. It’s the literal butterfly effect. 

Maybe all of this is leading me to my breakthrough. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe my breakthrough is hidden within a major life change I still have to make. Maybe it’s still a yearly process to get to my breakthrough. Honestly, who the hell knows, but always remember just because yours hasn’t come yet, doesn’t mean it never will. Don’t be so quick to give up on your dreams, talents, and passions because yours is taking a little longer than everyone else’s. Don’t be fooled by the fast-paces of this world, the coverups social media influences, and the constant competition. Screw everyone else’s process, you are on your own. 

And I really do try to live by my own mantras and advice because it’s a matter of simply practicing what I preach. It’s funny, because in one of my therapy sessions, my therapist summed up pretty quickly that I am able to see faith in those around me who are struggling and give them some insight that everything is going to be just fine, yet it feels like I can’t be my own cheerleader and tell myself the same exact thing, no matter how similar the situations may be. I pretty much responded with, “if you were to define me in a sentence, that would be it.” 

It’s honestly a matter of believing in yourself and believing that you are worthy of good things by putting in hard work, your determination, and everything else that you are confident about putting on the table. Hard work never really goes to waste in life, it’s only when you’ve stopped trying that it does.

So be patient with your special meal. It’s probably going to be the best meal of your life when it arrives at your table.