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Learning to Let Go of the Past

posted 4th February 2010    Written by: Katie    CATEGORY: All Posts, Katie, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 2, What I've Learned

INTRODUCING KATIE

I had a moment that changed the way I think about everything

I was blindsided by the Quarterlife Crisis, but in retrospect, I can pinpoint moments as far back as high school when I could have realized it was coming.

When I was 17, when everyone else was studying and prepping for college, I was working full time hours and had a much older boyfriend. I met him at work, he gave me the attention that I always wanted, and he had me at “you’re adorable. I love being around you.”

From there, it was a tumultuous 5 years filled with some ups, mostly downs, cheating, and financial ruins.

After I finally let that relationship go, but not enough to say I was ‘over it’, I dated a man closer to my age, without any experience. Anywhere. (Catch my drift?) He was into Psychology, and loved to analyze every hair on my head. I was interested in psychology and I liked to analyze him right back.  He was a student, he had a car, he had a job, he had a future planned that at times would include me.

I loved him, but had a difficult time showing it. Eventually we got tired of fighting, and we broke up. After a brief rekindle, we broke up again for good.

This breakup rocked my world, and not in a Michael Jackson kind of way. It was more of a “put my tender heart in a blender” kind of way.

2 months later,  last December, I got hit with a layoff.  The job that I was content with, at best, decided that they weren’t content with me, and let me go. The economy was horrible, I had no education, I was getting over a breakup, I was alone.

Everything had fallen apart, and I had no relationship, job, or education to lean on.

Super freakin’ Duper.

I lived the next 6 months in a depressed spending-haze. Unemployment checks would come in, and I’d head right out and buy things that I surely can’t remember or show you now. It felt good in the moment, but as with all unhealthy things, it ends up being something you lean on for support, but it doesn’t really do you any good.

As I spent those days, months, weeks, and years in emotional confusion and turmoil, I really didn’t grasp how much time was passing. Living for the moment worked for me, but I think I relied on that too much, for I didn’t make anything of those moments.

I gave up on opportunities. I started projects and never finished them. I accepted my depression and figured I’d just live with it forever.

I had a moment about a month ago that changed the way I think about everything. I was driving past my old high school, and each time I do, I do a little math in my head and think of how long it’s been since I “graduated”.  I realized it’s been 7 years.

7 years of feeling sorry for myself. 7 years of making excuses of why I would never make it. 7 years of unwillingly sabotaging myself of having a life that I deserved. In that moment I realized that it was time to not only live in the present, but to make the best of every moment.

So, here I am. I’ve made the realization, and am now trying to figure out what I want. I’m learning to be a little bit more selfish and a bit less selfless at times. I’m learning how to find my inner-most desires and making them happen. I’m learning to let go of the past, in order to make a happier future.

I’m learning to be me.

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Taking Time Out for Other People

posted 8th December 2009    Written by: Kendra    CATEGORY: All Posts, Quarterlife Crisis

heart on your handThe makers of the anti-anxiety and anti-depressant drug Lexapro have a handy online guide for depression screening.

I took the quiz twice.

The first time I answered the questions in the physical and mental space I was at the beginning of this month. The second time I took the quiz I as I’m feeling now.

A month ago, in their opinion I was severely, severely depressed. And now? I am currently mildly depressed. This, my friends, is what we call progress.

I am, mostly, feeling better. Nothing in my life has really changed, but I am doing much better at handling the curve balls and mood swings. I’m settling into myself, this new self that is not the naïf I was two years ago, but is not the jaded cynic I was two months ago.

I’m not happy, but I can see myself getting there.

With this newfound sense of perspective, I found myself last night for the first time in a long time thinking of someone other than myself as I said my evening prayers.

Yes, I pray before bedtime… you never know when you just might not wake up.

Anyway as I lay in bed chatting with my maker about my day, my hopes, my dreams I found myself less concerned with…myself and more concerned with other people. I found myself praying for the sorta friend who’d recently lost a parent; the vague acquaintance that I recently learned has been unemployed for six months with the awful burden of raising a family to boot, and the friend who has been unemployed for over a year.

A lot of people, people I know even… are suffering.

I think one of the upsides of the QLC – that it forces some serious soul searching – is also one of its downsides. We can get a little too caught up in our head, and that ladies and gents is a recipe both for narcissism and some serious crazy making.

Trust me.

Today in the mail a friend sent me a necklace with the word ‘believe’ on it. She said she saw it and instantly thought of me.

I cried.

While it’s important to take some time out for self, it’s important also I think to take time out for others. To remind people, even people we don’t know so well, even people we don’t really like, that they matter.

Because they do. And so do you.

kendra-bio1

photo credit : wolfsoul

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