By the time I hit 30, I had things sorted:
- Asides from missing a left kidney (which has been missing since forever and in no way affects my everyday life), my health was in check
- I had taken a career leap, found a job I loved and was investing much of my time in building two businesses
- Travel was frequent, adventurous and, on occasions, even allowed for a little luxury in Business Class
- I had just the right amount of incredible friends and family who were there to celebrate the highs and support the lows
- Along the way, I had even found a guy who decided he wanted to (willingly) spend the rest of his life with me
Life was fabulous and I was fortunate; I already know. Health, success, love, friends and family. I had (and still have) absolutely nothing to complain about.
And then, somewhere in the midst of the two years that followed, I kinda lost sight of myself.
The ‘kinda lost sight of myself’ where you feel as though everyone else notices that you’re not quite you, but in fact no one notices at all… because the chaos is unfolding in your mind. You get up and go about your day in the most normal of ways – with a smile on your face – ensuring you crush the negative thoughts with guilt because you have zero right to feel that way.
The ‘kinda lost sight of myself’ where you whole-heartedly throw yourself into everything – except dealing with your own emotions. You suppress your feelings; you mask them, hoping they’ll go away before realising they just don’t. The doctor said that such avoidance of emotions has its roots in high-functioning anxiety and depression – which I have since acknowledged. It’s strange that we live in a world where I think that anyone reading that last sentence will probably judge me, but I’m okay with it now – sort of.
So what exactly happened? Not entirely sure– still trying to figure that out, but at least I know that it can be figured out.
Maybe it was a culmination of all the things that seem to start snowballing into your world when you hit your thirties: people close to you (and close in age to you) start dealing with incomprehensible health and life issues; friends around you start ‘adulting’ at a much faster pace (careers, weddings, babies, houses, divorces…); and society continues demographically targeting you with out-dated pressures of where you should be at this stage of your life. Meanwhile, you want to press pause on life and hold onto the ‘you’ that existed 2 years ago.
The rise of social media doesn’t help things either. One quick glance at the ‘gram and every other 32-year-old in the world seems to be showing no signs of struggling with this ageing process – and certainly no signs of skipping unwanted birthdays. They’re not like you. In fact, they’re physically perfect, professionally impressive and financially free to travel the world – at least, that’s what they would have you believe. It’s one big game of ‘my fake life’ unless, like me, you start to curate your social feeds with self-aware women like Danae Mercer, Helen Farmer and Amelia Page, who keep this thirties-thing undeniably real, entertainingly honest and continue to find the positives throughout the process.
Or, perhaps, it’s the state of the world we live in that’s causing this cognitive chaos… the time-bound facts about the fate of our planet; the lack of connectivity in a world where people are always staring down at their phones; the perpetual introduction of new books, seminars and make-sure-you-pay-for-this-life-changing-advice that some of these self-help ‘experts’/scammers (you decide) certainly won’t give you for free.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s as simple as self-inflicted burnout from the non-stop hustle of work and life. I mean, who knows? Because I certainly don’t.
A good friend of mine told me that there was no need to try to pinpoint an exact trigger for this mini mind-f*ck moment in my life; you just have to take the time to work through it. I thought that was pretty solid advice, so that’s what I’m continuing to do.
If anyone needs me, I’ll probably still have my nose buried in Mark Manson’s ‘Everything is F*cked’, digging into the problems with today’s society and uncovering truths that will remind me of the importance of self-care; something I neglected until now. I figured it’s a good starting point while hitting ‘reset’ and getting back to my happy place.
Spoiler alert: everything isn’t f*cked.
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