I've been waiting to post new thoughts for awhile because I had hoped to do a blog relaunch on a new platform. That being said, I am a perfectionist and the new blog launch is taking too long- I have thoughts and words and things to be said. So instead of postponing my thoughts and ideas, I have decided to once again write my ramblings for you all to read and hopefully enjoy; if you don't enjoy them, sorry I am terribly not sorry- it's not my fault you are a masochist.
Since we have last spoke, a lot has changed. And when I say a lot, I mean a tremendous amount. A lot just makes everything seem a little less scary. More than a few months ago, I wrote "at the end of the day, I cannot change me. I cannot change reality. I cannot change whatever plan life has in store for me. I just have to adjust and deal with the cards dealt currently. "
& that has what I have been doing. Dealing with the current round of cards that were dealt.
The bitter winter worked its magic on both my emotional and physical health, and I found myself in a all too familiar and horrible place. The second semester blues, or as I liked to call it, "the second semester same realization you have had every year at this university." The university has become like a fall back romance. You know the one I am talking about? The guy who you have a so-so connection with, but never truly wanted. The one who you just fall back to because at first they are safe and familiar; then, you remember why you left them the first time. After getting back into the campus culture, I again found myself immersed in anxiety stemming from those around me. Constantly questioning my intelligence and comparing myself to the other students. When in reality, I know I am quite intelligent; my intelligence might differ from those who deem themselves as more scholarly, but nonetheless, I am no idiot. And I don't mean to come off as uppity; I am not claiming to be the next Einstein, but I do have some smarts. But uppity people were the reason I was questioning anything and everything I knew. I suppose I should have inserted a disclaimer somewhere in here that not everyone at this university is that way. But a few bad apples make you despair the world of which you are surrounded; and those few always seem to be more plentiful than in reality they actually are.
So that was how my year started off. Now if life were a game and we kept score, by February, I was already a lost cause. The score would probably look something like this...
Health- 150, School- 500, Shelby-0
Losing quite terribly had kind of become my game at this point. Now here is the turning point where I could either, to quote high school musical, "get my, get my head in the game" and try to save myself from drowning in coursework and health issues. Or, I could do what I did. Take a step back. Examine what is going on. Have a few breakdowns [ because every sane person should break in the situation of which I was faced]. Then figure out what exactly would be best for myself.
First, I removed myself from the environment that was the cause of the problem. I stopped listening to all the other opinions and advice that people were giving, and simply looked inside myself. And the core of the problem, was something quite simple actually. I was incredibly unhappy.
I know myself pretty well most of the time. There is the normal everyday unhappy that is caused by the years of social damage. There is the broken heart unhappy and that ship had already sailed. There is the "everything sucks because I say so" unhappy that is just inevitable in a 20 somethings life. But this was a whole new level. It's hard to put such emotions into words, but essentially my world was gray-scale. Everything I looked at, read, listened to, watched, or passed by produced a negative thought. This negativity was blackening. The only place of comfort was my bed, but even there I was stuck with a mind constantly thinking about everything wrong 24/7. While I may not be the most social butterfly or optimistic person, this was not me. I, on my good days, am an extroverted introvert. I love to be the wallflower that sits to the side and notices the quaint little things. But I don't mind being around people at times either and injecting myself in conversation. I love hearing the thoughts of others and taking in their perspectives. & when the music is right, you will find me doing karaoke and dancing with my good friends because that is what normal people do. But to even venture to my friends houses became a chore- which should never be a thing ever. & don't even think about going to class. When you feel ill from physical sickness and emotional sickness, leaving your bed for anything that is not a 100% requirement just isn't something you do. It was a daily struggle- and most of the time, the bed and sicknesses won. Those who know me fairly well know that I have a passion for learning new things; I am the person that Buzzfeed writes those "50 facts about _____" for. I live for random knowledge to fill my noggin and going to classes is at least a quality hour of furthering my knowledge. In the new state of unhappy I developed, I had lost all will to fight to participate in activities that are normally activities of enjoyment.
So another question forms. How did I, a person who likes people to extent and loves learning new things end up in this situation? & to answer that question, would take years of back-story and explanation and how one can spiral from places they didn't even know they could spiral. When you let the world control who you are, you can never truly find happiness and live your life.
I have written before about loving yourself before you can let others love you; and though, I had written that. I never knew exactly what I was talking about, until I realized I hated myself.
I hated the girl who was starring me back every morning. I hated who I had become. I hated that I put my family, friends, and grade point average through hell and back. I hated that I let this unhappiness overwhelm and I hated that I never realized that I had been doing it for years. Years and years and years, I was merely a face with so many mes that I couldn't piece together who I wanted to be. Now, reading all these ramblings back, I think I might be coming off a little bit crazy. Which, in all honesty, everyone is a little bit crazy, but I am not to the extent of crazy that I might be coming off. I am just tragically realistic. That is the first thing I learned. You cannot alter reality just because it is treating you badly. You rip off the mask and take a good look at what has come. So I did. I realized what had happened in a short few months. That is when I realized a good chunk of the unhappiness revovled around this University. & I am all for sticking things out and overcoming hurdles, but when you are persistently trying to make something work that just doesn't, it so isn't fetch.
[if you didn't catch that Mean Girls reference, you can't sit with me].
So now that I realized that my unhappiness was stemming from my university, I removed myself from it. It was just like the removal of a splinter; a pain in the butt and painful, but the relief felt afterwards was godly. I am sure some may see that as running away from my problems, but it was actually confronting the problem head on. Upon leaving, I was faced with the initial panic attacks that I was throwing away my life. The emails from professors, the exit interviews, the million emails from financial aid. All of it. Don't even get me started on when people asked me, "so will you be graduating this year?" or even better, "what are your plans?" A million responses formed in my head, but I always managed to mumble out some form of b.s. to please the masses. But once the initial few weeks ended, I did nothing. You heard me right. Nothing. I went to work, came home, watched television. I had days where I barely moved for 14 hours. Thankfully, I have loving parents who let me do nothing and not bother with asking what my plans were- but don't think that they didn't care. I know they want me to continue to get my education and finish my degree; I also know that is something I want, so thankfully we are on the same track.
Eventually my days of doing nothing came to end and I started piecing myself and life back together.
& it was surprisingly quite easy. When you look at all that's wrong, it is easy to find a way to fix the things. The difficult part is sticking with the solutions and making them actually happen. The process might be long and drawn out, but the thing about life is that it is never a clear cut path- that is just something you have to accept. So to make this blog follow the normal post outline, it needs a list of bullet points. WHAT IS A BLOG POST WITHOUT AT LEAST ONE LIST? It is nothing that great- that is what it is. So for your reading pleasure, here is what I did to pick up my pieces and start again.
How to get your stuff together:
1. Take Control of your Health: When you always feel like crap, it is hard to care about what you are putting into your body; you want things that taste good and you want them now. What is this cooking crap? It's stupid- well, until you know how great cooking can actually be. The more junk you consume, the more junk in your trunk, and the more junky you feel. Eating healthy is a never ending process. Learn to read labels and learn to set goals. My first step was to watch my sodium intake- and that was all I focused on because if you focus on everything all at once you are back to being a jumbled up mess [and more than likely hungry because you have no idea what you are doing]. So I watched that and became more aware of what I was eating- yet I still felt absolutely awful. That's when time called for a doctor's visit..... and guess what? I am officially a Celiac- yup, one of those. [and if you want a spin off article that perfectly describes this battle, check out this super fly article by a Miss Magnolia]. Not only that, the doctor gave me further health orders. The most obvious, eliminate all wheat, barely, and rye; he also ordered me to eliminate all processed sugar, monitor and up my fiber intake, and work out as vigorously as possible. I am riding the struggle bus in sugar withdrawals. On the bright side, natural sugars are fine- so my fridge is stocked with fruit to nibble on all day long. So with health orders in line, my goals are to follow the doctor's orders, get my butt in the gym and be as active as possible, and focus on getting healthier. Getting in control of your health isn't about losing weight or obtaining a certain silhouette, it is about improving your life and living life to the fullest.
2. Cut out the negativity: Emotional health is important too. While I still can be a Negative Nancy at times, I have realized that not everything has to have a bad connotation to it. Own what you love to do and do not let others make you feel inferior. So what I did here may or may not be good advice because I do what I want and do not always think things through.... but I sort of kind of might have most definiltely deleted people from my phone who I thought, for lack of better words, were complete assholes. They posted something ignorant on Facebook? De-friend. I am not recommending you go on a deleting spree. It isn't about removing people from your life just to remove people from your life. I'm talking about putting certain negative people in the past and sometimes the only way to do that is to simply say goodbye. When you close a terrible chapter of your life, you allow room for more to open - I think you'll find that the new chapters are way better than the old.
3. Realize who is in your corner: No matter what you may think, you are not alone. You have people that would do anything for you and love you unconditionally no matter what you put them through. Realize who these people are and make an effort to see them. You will more than likely have to catch them up on what the hell has been going on and you will need to apologize. We often blame others for not making an effort to see us, but where was our effort? Friendships take more than one person, so the blame cannot be put on just one person solely. For me, I had alienated myself from a good chunk of my friends; but thankfully, they took me back with open arms and we started right where we left off.
4. Research: The internet can be your best friend when used correctly. Explore. Find what interests you. Turn that into what you pursue. To achieve your goals, they must be something you want. If you do not want something, how in the hell do you think you would achieve that goal? Humans are known for setting themselves up to fail. THIS IS NOT OKAY. Dream big and you can achieve great things; no matter what pathway it took you to get there, everything will be okay in the end because you followed what you were passionate about. For me, I am still somewhat unsure of what exactly I want to do. I know I want a degree in public relations. My ideal job is to be a social media correspondent for a company like [cough cough] MTV [cough cough] or something; I also dream of being a published author one day. I know my somewhat pathway. Now all I need to do is figure out and research how I want to achieve these goals. Finding which college is the right fit to finish my degree will be one of the first things of course, but then I will just go from there. With research in hand, the possibilities are endless.
& most importantly....
5. Own who you are: I cannot stress this enough. Through getting your life together, you truly find out who you are and now that you know, you should not deny it. Whether you find that you are extremely anti-social or your discover you really have a thing for guys with beards, OWN IT. Every little thing you enjoy and love becomes apart of you and is apart of your quirks. Yes, whether you admit it are not, everyone is quirky. Some are just a bit more proud of their quirks than others. So while I'm preaching for you to own who you are, you might be questioning who I am. Well, I am a lot of things and not a lot of things. I am weird, but this is not a new discovery. I am extremely awkward and am completely oblivious to a lot of social cues. I adore having random conversations with people. I send long text messages because I like to write and am not good with sentence fragments- punctuation is a must. I love my hometown friends more than anything. I cannot sing, but I love to sing and will sing my heart out whenever my favorite song is playing [this applies to any situation: at the store, the bars, my car, at work]. I am the queen of procrastination. I actually really dislike clutter and am becoming the queen of organization [and realizing it is a very long process]. I am OCD and color coordinate my closet; it is also separated by sleeve length and style. At night, I would rather someone call and strike up a conversation than send a text. I am simply me. & you must simply be you. Don't live your life trying to be what you think somewhat else wants you to be. You can't find happiness that way.
& so here I am. While my life is still a mess, I feel completely content and have never been happier.
I finally realize what it is like to enjoy the little things in life again. From a cup of coffee to having just a few minutes of downtime, I am learning how to make the most out of life's little moments. While I might still worry about what to wear out, I go out as myself and have found confidence in that. With finding a way to live life and be content, a fog lifts from the world in which you live. You can finally see things for what they are and that is a lovely thing. I can finally strike up conversations with people and not worry about the outcome. I text people just to have a conversation and don't worry about what they might read into it [okay, I somewhat worry that I might be coming off as creepy, but that is a terrible downfall of texting]. I live each day as a new one and try to turn the negative thoughts into positive ones. Picking yourself up from rock bottom isn't a simple process. You will have the good days and the bad days, but the key is to always make sure you make the bad days good. Whether it is cheating on your diet with ice cream or simply chatting with a friend, the little things go a long way when you are feeling down.
& so these are my thoughts. Completely random rambles, but they are my completely random rambles.
I'm Simply finally Shelby Sue
P.s. Who is ready for snarky banter and random lists? I am- the ideas for new blogs are already flowing. Maybe I won't make you wait another five months for the next blog! If you took the time to actually read this long mess of words, I love you and you are my favorite.
