Twenty-two. — the blog

At three years old, my biggest aspiration was to be a cashier. I honestly thought they ruled the world. I also thought they got to keep all the money they kept in their registers. Every time my mum and I would shop for groceries, I’d volunteer to be the bagger, and the employee who was to be the actual bagger would be so impressed that a 3-year-old was so kind and helpful and wanted to willingly bag the groceries. Little me was not being kind and helpful. Little me was striking power moves, hoping to someday bag my way to the “top,” to being a cashier and ruling the world.

I was immensely (and strangely) fascinated with grocery stores and the level of independence and structure they provided. I have always been fiercely independent, adamantly but subtly claiming my individuality in every space. I liked to dress myself, I liked to make my own decisions, have my own opinions, and super hated when people told me I “looked like my mom,” because I felt that meant they were taking away from me being my own person. “I don’t look like my mom; I look like me,” I would say. (I still don’t think I look like my mom.)

In addition to my individualism, I was a very sensitive kid. I felt everything deeply and wasn’t ever afraid to display emotion. I felt objects had feelings and I desired to protect their hearts at all costs. When watching movies and I knew a scary part was coming on, I’d grab all the remotes and pillows in the room and hold them close to me. “It’s okay you guys, I’m protecting you,” I would tell them. I argued strongly against things that didn’t make sense to me, emotionally or logically, and could sense when people weren’t being open or genuine with me. I liked order and structure with just enough space to think freely and just enough space to do something out of character sometimes.

My life had been ruled by routines. I’ve lived in the same house since before I was old enough to remember any different. I went to two different schools. I’ve had the same friends growing up as I do now, with the exception of a few. Same church, same restaurants, same restaurant orders. I’ve had the same doctor and dentist my entire life and seeing them once or twice a year is always a “so catch me up since I last saw you and tell me about college/college boyfriend/future plans.” The little Italian owners of my favorite pizza shop know my order by heart as soon as I walk in. I live for the structure. It keeps me sane. I have always been resistant to change and it’s uncharted territories and my inability to control it.

In the past four years, my life has instead been ruled by constant change and constant transitional stages. My first year of college was probably the first big hit, other than my parents’ divorce. I had moved to the South where people were friendly and in your business and sometimes passive aggressive and I didn’t know how to deal. I missed my family, I missed the feeling of coming home, and I missed my friends in Massachusetts. I felt I’d poured so much into the previous version of me and I wasn’t ready to leave her behind and pour into a new one, but the changes kept coming.

The summer after my first year, my then relationship of four years ended and I had so many feelings I didn’t know how to process. I felt like the world had literally been ripped out from under me, and I had trouble finding my footing. Had I not rebooted my relationship with God, which I hadn’t realized I’d neglected as much as I had, I would still be carrying bits of that pain, unable, and probably unwilling, to let them go.

My sophomore year brought a new wave of changes. Following the norm for post-break up rituals, I dyed my hair and got four new jobs, eager to pour all this new-found energy into my external environment. I stepped into yet a new version of myself, melancholy and creative and slightly always anxious. I felt I created my most beautiful works of writing in my moments of greatest emotional pain, so I cradled melancholiness and found beauty in sad things and somber moods and vibes. I started writing a lot more than I ever had, channeling my emotion into my work. I made a few new friends who eventually became family. I was unburdened and happier than I’d been in a long time. Also, I’d met a guy. He was quiet and peaceful and I was more intrigued by him than I’d ever been by anything in my life. But I had sworn off relationships for like, the next seven years, so that wasn’t happening (right?). Except that plan didn’t really work out for me, seeing as I’ve now been dating that guy for almost three years, and the changes and transitions we’ve gone through together are a whole story on their own.

My junior year, I went abroad to Italy with one of my best friends. We were so excited to live abroad together for ten months, falling in love with Florence and its fatal, fatal charms. We’d been talking about this since high school and had been planning it since we got to college. I’d gotten on a plane with my spiraling mental health, putting all of my hopes in Italy to revitalize me and make me a happier person. Except it didn’t. I got there and it didn’t. That first semester, I experienced the loneliest, most depressing months I’d ever lived. I was in one of the most beautiful places in the world with one of my favorite people alive, and I felt nothing. I had little energy to participate in life, and it started taking a toll on me physically. My skin broke out intensely, my hair started falling out and my weight was fluctuating dramatically. For this and many other factors, I decided I needed to come home after the semester was over, desperately craving familiarity to heal properly.

Amid the changes in my relationship, my close friendships, and coming back to Southern for the winter semester, my mental health continued to plummet. I was unaware of what was happening to me, how to stop it, and why I felt like I was literally losing my mind. I became a shell of myself. I withdrew socially. I smiled less. I had no energy to do any of the things I loved, and it showed in my work and in my relationships. My anxieties were at an all-time high and I felt detached from myself, out-of-control, and with little desire to be alive.

Over Christmas break last year, one of my closest friends confronted me about my toxic emotional patterns. He told me, in the most loving way possible, that he believed I was struggling with suicidal ideation. He told me I hadn’t been myself for a very long time, and that I was becoming destructive to myself and depending too much on my close friends and external surroundings for stability. He told me I needed to find help, and gave me several print outs of places where I could seek it. In my entire life, it’s the biggest, most loving act of friendship anyone has ever done for me. Slowly, I began to heal, find my footing, and I got my personality back.

Now, at 22 years old, I am comfortable and confident in many things. I’m comfortable with dealing with life’s inevitable disappointments and small tragedies, along with my own short comings. I’m comfortable with taking on creative projects that both scare and excite me, and I’m confident in the power of my femininity, my empathy, and self-awareness. I am most comfortable in my own skin than I’ve ever been. I’m most confident in my abilities than I’ve ever been, and am more emotionally stable than I’ve ever been. God has helped me fight so many big and small battles to grow into someone I am proud of, and with that has come an inner peace and stability that I can’t explain in words. Self-confidence is truly half the battle, and I could seriously not have done it without God. My favorite version of me has Him in it. He is still working and molding me, but He makes everything beautiful in His time.