New Year, New…Meh…You Know the Drill

For the past few months, I’ve been doing some serious internal healing. Or at least starting to. Apparently it’s a long process. I finally broke down and started seeing a therapist, and it has been the best decision I’ve made in a long time. Almost as good as that glitter wrapping paper choice was bad.  We’ve been working on everything from my childhood to my emotional shopping addiction. And get this… I’ve started meditating. Meditating! And I like it! Who the hell am I?!

I’ve learned some very valuable things in my journey so far. One of them being that moving to a new city is the emotional equivalent of a death in the family. So that explains a lot.

I’m also learning that it’s okay to not know where I want to be in the next ten years. Or even the next ten months. This is great because I literally have no idea. I’m trying my best to live in the present, which seems like a great plan until your boss asks you where you want to be in the next five years… But that’s another story.

This whole not knowing where I want to be in the future thing has been especially hard for me to swallow because up until I graduated from college, I’ve had a plan. My life has been set up for me for as long as I can remember. I was born, turned five, went to elementary school, then junior high, then high school, then college, then job. Well, I’ve done that. I’ve checked the boxes. The rest is up to me. The only thing I really know is where I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be with someone I’m not happy with, and I don’t want to go back to Mississippi (though I miss my family dearly). That’s two things. After 27 years of living, I know two things. And that scares the shit out of me. From the beginning, every thing was laid out into next-steps, and I had very little choice in the matter of where or what to do next. Now the choice is completely up to me, and that is terrifying. I still feel like I’m 15 in a 27 year old’s body. I’m not equipped to make decisions like this!

So every now and then I have minor meltdowns. Usually centered around the recurring theme of why-does-being-an-adult-have-to-be-so-hard. The bad news is that something as small as my internet not working can set it off. The good news is they are getting fewer and farther between. I am approaching my one year mark in Charlotte, so, based on my experience moving to Nashville, this is pretty par for the course and the second year will be spent feeling more like I belong here.

I am going out and meeting new people. I’ve rekindled old friendships. Some as far back as my sorority days. I’m dating. I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, and eventually I know things will start to fall into place. It’s the waiting that’s the hard part. I’ve never been very patient.

Overall I am happy and in a much better place than I was a few months ago. I’m happy with my decision to move to Charlotte, I’m happy at work, and I’m happy with the people I’ve chosen to be in my life.