I turned 33 just over a month ago and now that I've had some time to let that sink in, I've been reflecting on my life. A question people often ask is whether or not people can actually change. I've been looking back at who I was compared to who I feel I am now in an attempt to try and answer that question, even if the answer is one that only applies to my own life not necessarily those of others.
I always insisted that people could never truly change, that you are who you are underneath all of the pretence, the only thing that "changes" is how much effort you put into showing that or hiding it depending on whether that's who you want to be. To an extent I still hold that as true, but personal growth does have to be acknowledged. I feel like I am still the same person I always was underneath it all. The amount of effort I put into hiding that person has gone up and down in waves. I spent my teenage years in the closet afraid of people finding out I was gay because of the way I saw other guys being treated. I also grew up in an environment that was relatively conservative although in hindsight I now see that was moderate compared to what other people have experienced.
During my late teens and early twenties I spent most of my time unpacking that mentality and opening up to others. I came out of my shell in College and University and in essence I brought myself back to the mentality most people have before their teenage years start. I hated the rest of my twenties because life wasn't what I had planned, nothing went the way other people told me it would. The paths that other people "sold" to me as paths to the things I wanted turned out to be nothing more than snake oil. I don't regret my education, despite the fact I haven't used my degree and the mountain of debt that came with it. I don't regret it because that time in my life gave me the opportunity to "reset" my life. In many ways I tried to become a person I thought other people would like but eventually realised that was wasted energy.
Everything mentally began to slide down a hill after my physical health took a dive. I have written posts about that in much more depth on blogs that are now deleted, and right now I don't have the energy to tell that story once more. I had a condition called Sarcoidosis and it consumed my life for a time. I am still recovering from the impact of that experience.
Life feels boring at the moment though, which in a way is a welcome break from the previous decade but I have found myself seeking out new opportunities to move forward. I realise that sounds cryptic, and to be honest it is, that's because it touches on specifics about my life offline which I don't talk about in depth on here. Suffice to say I am not happy with the growth I have achieved and want more. The thing that has always driven me in life more than anything else was the desire to be happy, as long as I was happy that was all that was important, aspirations for anything else never really featured heavily when planning out my life, they were welcome thoughts and nice ideas or sweet dreams but nothing more. I'm not happy anymore though and I'm struggling to find happiness in the things I once did.
I struggle with anxiety and depression and I can't remember how much of that I have shared on this blog. The one thing that got me through it until now was the fact that I could be content in the moment and find something small and simple I could enjoy but those simple pleasures are gone now. In some ways their absence is due to the pandemic which is unavoidable and I can't control those because I can't control Covid and its impact on humanity - I'd be a very rich man if I could. In other ways though, the touchstones that I turned to for joy have become repetitive and predictable which used to provide comfort as they offered something that was safe and reliable but now I've reached a point where they don't consume my consciousness, not enough to prevent me from thinking about other things mostly negative.
The pursuit of a rest or a break for my mind from worry and the spiral of negative thoughts is a constant battle. It's one way to combat anxiety but to quote this comic "just once I wish I could change the thing, instead of how I think about the thing." That's very much where I am not mentally, not content with coping mechanisms and unable to find that feeling of content in the things that used to provide comfort. I want change and I am not sure how to get it or how to make it happen but I am trying.
I haven't been feeling very creative lately, partly because this mindset is hanging over me like a dark cloud. I know that if I give up that it could descend and I would spiral back down into depression and I don't want that to happen. I don't really have the energy to devote to anything productive right now either, which leaves me in a precarious position. I need to approach my life in this moment like a game of chess, to make calculated moves considering the progressive steps beyond each move. That's what I have been doing, unfortunately it takes time for the impact to be felt and I can't move forward until the "other player" makes their move so I'm stuck making decisions and then waiting for the outcome. In many ways that makes me feel like my life is on hold, the only comfort is that I know I am not alone, half of the world feels the same way right now although for most people it's for very different reasons.
As for the pandemic, my family is mostly double dosed now; I've had my first dose of AstraZeneca and I have my second next month, yet another thing I have to wait for and can't speed up. That's the thing about anxiety too though, it steals your focus and denies concentration by drawing both to the things you're waiting for. Like those memes of a calendar with a meeting at 2pm that show the whole morning waiting for the meeting and the whole afternoon recovering from the meeting, that's pretty much where I am mentally when it comes to Covid, waiting for the end and trying not to think about what will happen if the pandemic lasts months, or even years longer than we expected. As a gay man the parallels with the HIV/AIDS epidemic are blatantly obvious to me and the concern there is that it's still going now decades later. The thought that Covid could last decades is exhausting and something I try to avoid acknowledging but it lingers and there's no avoiding it especially in the face of political decisions being made which I don't want to go into right now because that's exhausting to think about too.
In an attempt to leave this post on a positive note, there are always choices you can make, no matter how small and insignificant they may seem, the fact that you have a choice in itself is something to hold onto because that feeling of agency is needed to fight the feeling of being helpless and at the mercy of other people. So if you're struggling right now my only advice is to look at your life and the choices you can make even if it's something as simple as what toppings you have on a pizza or what outfit you wear that day. Avoid doing the exact same thing constantly making the exact same choices, try and incorporate variety into your life even if it's small and seemingly insignificant, it does help to shift your perspective from the things you can't change to the things you can, and in time you'll become more ambitious and find bigger things you can change.
Nice one ❤️
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