Day 38: Cathartic Rant

The past few weeks I´d been seriously questioning my choice to leave Spain last year and move to Portland. But after some things that were written to me today, I´m starting to see it differently. I had the courage, the chutzpah, the BALLS to drop everything and take a chance. I had the courage, the chutzpah, the BALLS to go after exactly what I wanted and didn´t care what anybody else thought and wouldn´t acknowledge that I could fail or dwell over what I would be risking. I just did it. I got in my car and I drove. And I stuck it out. And I did it because it´s exactly what I wanted at the time and nothing – not fear, not anything – could stop me.

And that´s the main difference between a lot of people I know. I go after what I want and I will stop at NOTHING to get it. Many people, on the other hand, don´t have the courage to break from what they know and are comfortable with in order to go after anything that takes patience and work and bravery and is hard and may make you sad and test you to reach.

So… what all is there to this that I´m supposed to learn?

1)  Investing all of your happiness into someone is an awful idea. Because when you do and they´re gone, you´re left with nothing. Invest your happiness - but only a certain amount.

2) Always assuming there must be something wrong with me and the other person is just great is ridiculous. Look for flaws in myself, sure, but be willing to believe the other is not perfect and to have the self-confidence to assert your standards.

3) Following your heart is good – even if it doesn´t totally work out in the end like how you´d imagine, at least you can know that you did everything in your power and there are no What if´s. It´s a brave sort of thing that I don´t think many people actually follow through on.

4) When people eff up, it´s not a commentary on my worth or loveableness, but on their effed-upness. Some people just don´t have the right tools to express love and their lack of tools has no bearing on who I am and what I am.

Everything just feels like a mess, but at the same time, it´s felt that way for so long and I feel like I´m finally taking steps to clean things up.

When I accepted my place in this Master´s program, I knew things would change – I knew they had to. If I wanted a future of happiness and success and personal growth. If I wanted a life that I could be absolutely proud of and create a foundation for having an adorable family later on. This would be the year I had to start. People around me would have to SERIOUSLY step up their game, or fall out of the game all together.  I would be getting the proper degree and certification to give me the freedom to travel the world for the next few years of my life and to go on adventures and explore what´s out there. The only thing I got wrong was I thought it´d be easy. I thought it´d be fun. I thought I´d have my friends from last year to go on adventures with. I thought I´d have a certain person back home to talk to at the end of the day. I thought I´d love the program and I thought I´d still be in love with Spain. But none of it is turning out the way I thought it would.

I´m not really very happy here. It´s not easy. It´s not always fun. The one person I had so much fun with last summer has made it clear that she has moved on and should drop off the planet. The person I left at home says it´s too emotionally difficult to communicate with me and doesn´t even want to risk the emotional difficulty of visiting me here anymore. Classes are dull and teaching is more discipline than instruction and I don´t feel like I´m very good at it at all. I feel like the only thing I really got right was my living situation in a cute apartment with sweet roomies who are becoming friends. And tango class. I mean – I guess I´m actually getting a lot of things right, they´re just not the big things that I wanted to have in my life.

Sometimes I think to myself that this is it; that this is life. This is being an adult and wow doesn´t it suck. But thinking like that is based on a serious fallacy. Life is constantly changing – for better or for worse – and things won´t be this way for forever. Heck, they will only be this way for another eight months, if that, actually! And then it´s off to my next adventure – wherever that might be.

So things may not be working out the way I want them to, but I don´t think that means I should give up hope yet. Sometimes when things are great I get scared because I know everything is a cycle. Right now I have to remember that right before something wonderful happens, everything always totally and completely falls apart. I have plenty of examples in my own life to teach me this. Everything changes because you want it to and because it´s in the best interest of your own personal growth and future. I knew before I got here all of this had to change in order to become the jet-set, deeply loved and adored, cultured, intellectual, witty, polyglot, sanguine girl that I want to be in my mid 20´s. If I stayed where I´ve been, I wouldn´t blossom into the girl I want to be at all. I´d be stuck. Stagnant. And I´d grow bitter quickly.

Maybe this weekend I can make a board or a painting or some visual representation of who and what I want to be at this time next year. And then I´ll realize that anything that doesn´t fit into me growing into that girl is not worth me replaying in my head and crying about and screaming about and feeling so very hopeless and unloved and unworthy about.

Sometimes the universe doesn´t give you what you want because it has something much better in mind for you.

Sometimes on the way to your dream you find one that´s even  better.

That´s what seems to be happening here.

It´s not that the universe isn´t giving me the Oreo I´m asking for; it´s that it´s saving up to give me a baker´s dozen of Gigi´s cupcakes. It isn´t that the universe isn´t giving me the gold fish from the carnival I wanted; it´s that it´s saving up to give me a sweet little long haired teacup Yorkie who will love and adore me and lick me all over my face and wag its tail every time it sees me. I just have to create the space within myself to accept bigger things and prepare to be the best version of myself I can be when everything starts to fall into place again.

So if the people I hold dearest to me and love the most rather forget about me and ignore me than put the time and energy into our relationships, all I can do is speak my truth and tell tell them how I feel and try to realize this has no bearing on my worth, but is only a commentary on them. But as long as everyone around me is choosing their own path, it´s time I chose mine not based on them, but based on myself and  my own goals:

I want to blossom into the jet-set, cultured, sanguine, beautiful, adored girl that I´ve always dreamed of becoming in my mid-20´s.

I want to travel and learn languages and see the world from a plethora of different perspectives.

I want to meet and surround myself with people who are intellectual, witty and adventurous so that I can learn from them and have a wide group of unique friends who challenge me and make me feel happy and supported.

I´m not sure how many more days I´ll have between now and when things start getting better in which I´ll just want to hide under the covers and cry and wonder why the people I care about the most don´t show that they love me in the way I want them to... or in which I´ll wonder what I´m doing here and where I´m going and what the point of all of this is... but I do know that one day I´ll be able to look back at this path I´m on and say, ¨Aha! So that´s what that was about!¨ And silently I´ll smile and future me will tell past me that she made us really proud and was very brave and thank her for getting us where we´ve ended up.