Birthdays & Reflections

Yesterday was my birthday. I am now officially 27 years of age.

Alright , enough with the formalities. This calendar past year has been without a doubt one of the greatest years I have had ever. My past birthday year started off with a rocky start since my family was in a car accident about a week before my birthday and my mom broke her back and my sister torn her Achilles tendon and developed a blood clot shortly after. But since then, my other sister got married. My brother has a fiance and a daughter. And I received my first training role. Oh and I’ve been to seven countries. And I have about $2300 left of personal credit card debt.

Like I said, this past year was amazing. It has been a whirlwind of emotions and a series of ups and down, mainly up and I am so lucky, well blessed to have been afforded all of the opportunities that I have over the past year.

With that being said, about a month ago after losing my last position, I slowly entered into a depression. I guess that’s what it’s called when the things that usually bring you joy, no longer do. I would say that I was in my funk for about three weeks with the last week being the most difficult. I finally truly snapped out of it on Saturday when I took a trip to visit my friend in Michigan.

But, before then I wasn’t happy and I honestly wasn’t see a way out of it. I was miserable and I didn’t know why. And then I got mad at myself for being so miserable because I have so many things that other people do not.

I figured that I was being ungrateful or that I was being selfish because things weren’t going my way. But, the truth is/was I was physically or mentally, whatever the case may be, unable to be “happy”. I wasn’t able to snap out of it like I usually did. Even my aunt noticed that there was something wrong with me. That was the first time EVER that I couldn’t mask how I was feeling enough to make it through even the simplest of interactions.

I started this post a week ago. My birthday was November 6th. In that past week, I started to feel significantly better. Things were/are starting to look up and I started to feel like myself again. Slowly, but surely. But then Wednesday hit and something stopped. I stopped getting better. I stopped seeing the good. I stopped being patient with myself, I stopped talking to my friends. I just stopped.

I think it’s all related to job stress. I am waiting to hear back from a position that I really want and the wait is what’s killing me, because I feel like I have to wait even longer because they are on the west coast and are up three hours after me. There also the stress that I was supposed to have worked two days this week with a family I babysit for but the dad canceled on me. That wouldn’t have been that big of an issue, but I turned down ANOTHER family because of this family and he cancels. Finally, I think it just all came crashing down on me because this week I had to borrow from my savings again. Not just my regular savings, but the savings that you hide away and forget is there savings. It’s been two months since my last paycheck and I am getting worried. Again.

I thought my life would be different by now. I thought that I would in a relationship, have a great career, own my own home. You know the normal things that people aspire to have in their late twenties. And don’t get me wrong on the outside looking in, I seem to have it all. I get to travel, for free, I only work half of the year, I have little to no debt, I’m healthy. What more could person ask for, right?

Genuine happiness on a daily basis for starters.