I'm bad at titles. It literally took me an hour to title that article so that leaves you much room to imagine how long I've been thinking to write the following article that you're about to read. I just felt like maybe, possibly, some people out there could need to read that, and since those are things I came up with really recently I also figured it would be great to write them down so I could read them again when I need a reminder, because if there's one thing I know about myself it's that I OFTEN need a reminder.
I'm nothing special. Like most people in my generation, I've grown surrounded by people who were determined to get me to do what was best for me, meaning what they would have liked to do but couldn't achieve for many reasons. Nobody is to blame, though, the thing with human beings is they always truly believe what is good for them is also good for everyone. I grew up a little too fast, I grew up oddly, the strange one because I was a little too quick on understanding things at school. I grew up feeling alienated and not fitting in, and yet I was told that I was normal, and not really anything special. People kept saying I could do anything. But anything that included a whole lifetime of studies, you know, becoming a hairdresser or a cook had never been among my options. Thankfully it never was something I really wanted to be, but what if? I still wonder how it would have turned out. The convenient thing with me is I never really knew what I wanted to do with my life so I just let people decide for me, that was convenient, easy, and involved no decisions. I was fine.
All my life, I had grown up with the obvious proof, everyday, all around me, that work was the most awful thing ever. That it separated families. That it made adults unhappy. That it was normal to take your every day job as a chore. That after all it was necessary to suffer. I had almost come to terms with it, I had accepted that I was lucky for getting into a school that would turn me into a leader of the world, even though I had no idea if I was gonna like it. And then I did an internship and it was the best and worst thing that ever happened to me. I was in a bad place mentally already, due to various things that were haunting me and a terrible feeling of being useless at school because I wasn't learning everything. But that intership was literally the end AND the beginning of everything. I still can't put into words how I felt about it. Trapped. Not myself. Unimpressed. Not interested. Dead, almost. Scratch almost. And I think that's when I began questionning everything. What was I doing here exactly? Was I ever gonna find my way? So I talked to amazing people, virtually though, and tried to find solutions to the depression I had fallen into and to all the other things that were going wrong in my life.
Before it all went up it still got even more down for a while. Because when you start to notice something is wrong in the perfect picture you had imagined then everything, literally EVERYTHING falls apart. I don't think I'll ever thank the people who were in my life at that time enough. Some of them saved my life and they have no idea they did. I thought a lot, I thought way too much, I cried a lot, too, and I took time away from the entire world to figure myself out. I barely left my bed in 2 months, I'm not even exaggerating. And I took the decision to tunr my life around. And it only went up from there. Because I believe that yes, I can and WILL be happy in my life. I'm NOT one to want a big and huge career to make a lot of money. I am not interested in killing myself at work 50h a week doing something that I'm not interested in. I want a family life. I want kids. I want to do something I will feel useful for doing. I will be a teacher and I'll be a great one, because that's actually MY choice and not anybody else's. And I do believe that when, some day, I'll find someone to settle down and have kids with, I will be a great mom. I will actually teach my kids that what matters is to be happy with your choices in the end. And I swear I won't repeat the mistakes that have been made on me. I'm not complaining or blaming anyone, this is just a statement. I don't want to be the one who repeats the story. I don't want to be the one to make anyone feel like meeting someone else's expectations is the only thing to do and the only way to get any form of recognition. And if I manage to do that then I'll have achieved my goal and that sounds pretty damn right to me.
I'm convinced that you don't always have a choice, that sometimes there are just too many things holding you back, and I was lucky enough to get that chance. I feel the consequences everyday. I'm slowly getting out of depression but I don't do black magic, you know, there still are awfully dark thoughts in my head at times, I can't erase them all all of a sudden, I don't even want to, I want to regain happiness step by step. And the thing with steps is that sometimes there are some that go backwards. But in the end you're moving forward. There are so many people trying to bring me back because they don't understand. Or maybe because they actually understand that I'm finally trying to spread my wings and go live my life for myself. I'm sorry that you couldn't keep me for yourself and I'm sorry that I disappointed you, I really am. But I plan on making you proud, probably just not the way you expected me to do it. I'm stll trying to figure so many things out but I now have hope that a better future is possible. That I won't have to be sad for the rest of my life. That there is no road I have to follow, and that I'm writing my own path. I made mistakes and I'm going to make mistakes again. Ain't it what life is for? Making mistakes, finding out what they were, ending up a better person.
I'm nothing special. And I still don't know if I'm ever gonna be the kind of person I want to be come but there's one thing I've learnt: I'm young, I have a future, the best is yet to come.
