I’m sorry it took so long for me to write part three of all the lessons I’ve learned in my 30th year. I’ve been feeling quite anxious and not quite myself since turning 30 (in no relation to my age), so things like writing have taken a back burner so that I can focus my rest and my healing. I am not looking for pity or attention from anyone – just being honest with myself about where I have been at mentally. And, writing has been a huge outlet for me, so I’m stopping the excuses and using this to help me refocus.
#21. “Thank God for all I missed, ’cause it led me here to this.” Thank you, Darius Rucker. I had the pleasure of seeing him live for my birthday this year, also just after going through all the emotions of having split from my ex a year ago. One of my most favorite songs by him, “THIS,” now has a new, special meaning. I could not have been the girl I am today, if I was not who I was a month ago, six months ago, a year ago, 8 years ago. I had to go through what I did in order to be where I am today. I had to make the tough decision to leave. I had to start over. I had to start therapy. I had to be a single mom and co-parent. I had to fall on my face to get back up. I had to have my heart broken, more than once. I had to miss all the opportunities I did miss and thought I was going to have. I had to grieve a life that I imagined having, that I no longer am going to have. I had to feel everything that I felt, and I had to acknowledge those feelings. All of that led me to be the woman I am today, and the woman I am becoming. All of this is going to be better than what I thought was.
#22. Things are happening for me, not to me. When we are faced with a tragedy or something challenging, often our first question is “Why is this happening to me!?” Yes, it is true that we don’t want “bad” things to happen to us, and it is true that we don’t always get to pick and choose what happens in our lives. No one wants to have a family member pass away. No one wants to lose touch with friends. No one wants to experience the guilt and trauma and self-doubt of going through a divorce. And, sometimes those things are out of our control, and those things happen. How can those things be for you? I’ve experienced all those things in the last year, and I’ve decided to try to find a way to get something out of it – have these things happen for me, not to me. I love harder, and I have boundaries with people. I make my self-care a priority, and I break the rules. I acknowledge my grief and other hard feelings, and I am compassionate with myself. I’m not hard on myself, and I am a damn good mom. I was able to make what was happening to me, for me. If I had to experience all those things, I sure as hell was gonna get something out of it.
#23. Things don’t get easier; you get stronger. I heard this saying a lot in different at home workout programs I was doing in relation to weight and cardio training. Through out the programs, the trainers repeatedly shout that each rep or each second doesn’t get easier, but it’s in fact you getting stronger. The exercise and the routine is the same from day to day and week to week. You get stronger. I didn’t hear them right away, but they were talking more about mental health than they were physical strength. Remember, “You can or you can’t. Both are true” ? Our heads and our mindset is what keep us from doing a majority of what we want to do, weight lifting and cardio training included. Our bodies are capable of so much if we can get out of our own head. Once our mental health and the control of our thoughts is ours instead of being victim to it, we get stronger. The exercise is still challenging, but we get stronger. This can be applied to all domains of our lives. I adopted this mindset on nights that I am alone. It was really, really hard to be alone at first. And, it still is hard, but I got stronger. I got stronger mentally, and I made it a point to do things to keep me strong on those hard nights. Things won’t ever necessarily get easier, but you will get stronger.
#24. The future is scary, but you can’t run back to the past just because it is familiar. I believe that sometimes we stay in situations too long because it is familiar. A relationship. A job. A home. A thought process. A behavior. Change is hard, and growth is not a linear process, so when we make a change and get scared because it is uncomfortable or not what we expected, sometimes we resort back to what we were doing in the past. We return to who or what or where was familiar. Growth doesn’t happen there. Growth happens where you are challenged. We can’t do the same things over and over again, and expect different results (insanity). Familiarity isn’t always safe. It took me a long time to realize that. And when I decided to finally make a change, there were still moments that I thought I was making a mistake and thought I should return to what was familiar. At times I did, expecting things to be different. They weren’t different. At some point of our lives, we do change, and something is new to us, until it isn’t anymore. That relationship was new, and that job was new. Eventually, the scariness of the newness will ware off and will no longer be “new.” Challenge yourself to make the change so that you can grow instead of being stuck in comfort.
#25. You can’t stop thinking thoughts. I used to hate the question, “What are you thinking about?” I often would respond “nothing,” but that was a lie. We are never not thinking about something. I guess a more appropriate response to that question would be “Nothing of ‘importance,'” or “Nothing ‘worth’ sharing,” or “Nothing I want to share with you” instead of just nothing. I don’t know about you, but my mind goes a million miles a minute all the time, and I do my best thinking in the shower. I am constantly thinking of something (as you all are), and sometimes – at the worst times – these thoughts are SO loud. Usually when I am trying to sleep. Not only are they loud, but they are thoughts I don’t want to be having. Ones that I wish I could just push away. Which, in turn, makes me think about them even more, and now I am up all night. I regularly share with my therapist thoughts that I am having. She reminds me all the time, that that is all they are… thoughts. She reminds me that we don’t have to believe every thought that comes across our minds. We are separate from the thoughts we think. As powerful as our thoughts are, that is simply all they are – thoughts. We have the ability to change our thoughts at any given moment if we want to; we can choose what to think about. We have an infinite number of thoughts a day, and an infinite number of things we can think about, so we can change them. She, also, reminded me to first, notice the thoughts as they come. In order for us to think of something else, we need to be aware of them passing through our minds. Just as we do with feelings and needing to feel what we are feeling. We need to notice the thoughts as they come. If we are aware of our thoughts, we can then step outside of those thoughts and identify them just as they are instead of allowing them to define who we are because of them. Thoughts are going to happen, and we can control them and their power.
#26. There is nothing wrong with asking for what you need. And, it is ok to have a problem with it when you aren’t getting it. I love food. Anyone who knows me knows that I love food. They also know that I get very hangry when I haven’t eaten. I have a problem when I do not have food when I need it. Same with water, to drink or shower with. Same with clothes because I didn’t do the laundry. Why should our needs in any area of our lives outside of basic necessities be any different? I need communication, respect, friendship, and trust in a relationship. If I don’t have that, I don’t want it. I need support, teamwork, money, and time off from a career. If I don’t have that, I won’t work with you. I need space, a book, my writing, some blankets, physical activity, and mindfulness to have a well cared for mental health. If I don’t have those things, I am not myself. Asking for those things, doesn’t make me a bitch or controlling, no matter how many times I get told that. We all have needs, and it is ok to ask for them.
#27. Busy is a fucking cop out. Everyone is busy. People have a job, more than one job, a family, laundry to do, dinner to cook, the gym to get to, hobbies to participate in, therapy, child’s practices and games to get to and watch. Scrolling Instagram or Facebook. Posting on SnapChat. Binging Netflix. We have time for all these things because we make time for them. We make them a priority. I have heard too many times from people I thought loved or cared about me that they’ve “been busy” so they couldn’t call or text or spend some time with me. It infuriates me. Maybe I need to have more empathy and understanding with others when they say “I am busy,” because I too am “busy.” I’ve still made time for the things I’ve identified as important. I’ve decided to no longer make that as an excuse to not make time for someone or something I care about. I/we have time for a million other things; we need to start making what is a priority, a priority, and being honest with ourselves and other people why they haven’t made the cut.
#28. “Our house is a home because we love each other in it.” I stole this quote from the Netflix Series, “MAID.” I eventually will be doing a review of the show in one of my upcoming posts, but for now, I am taking this quote to really highlight how important this is for me at this part of my life.) By now, in my child imaginary dream world, I would be married to the love of my life, have two children, live in a big, beautiful home, vacation at all of my favorite places in and out of the state and country, living the “American Dream.” As you all know, that hand has not been dealt for me like I thought. Instead, I am renting a small, two bedroom apartment in Concord, NH. For me and my son. And it is the most beautiful, comforting, loving home. It is exactly what I would have imagined for Oriyus and I. It is a home because we love each other in it. Its not full of “stuff” or things. Not big, expensive things anyways. It is full of the simple things that I have come to genuinely appreciate in the last year. I now have hanging in my living room, a sign that says “Love grows best in little houses with fewer walls to separate, where you eat and sleep so close together, you can’t help but communicate. If we had more room between us, think of all we’d miss. Love grows best in little houses just like this.” Just last night, laying in bed, Oriyus and I were talking about the favorite parts of our day as we do every night, and he told me, “The best part of my day was loving you, mumma.” I love coming home at the end of the day to be with Oriyus to just love on each other. Our first little home together in Concord will always be one of my favorite places. Love is growing in it every day.
#29. Hype squads are for real. Friends and family are so important, and I am incredibly thankful for all of the people I have had and still have today. My friends and family have always been there to tell me what I want to hear and have provided me comfort with things I have struggled with. I truly appreciate the ones that also tell me what I need to hear, regardless of how brutal it might be. Friends and family see the beauty in you that you at times struggle to see, and don’t see yet. They motivate and encourage you to be the best versions of yourself. They root for you, no matter how low you are and are feeling. This last year, I’ve really looked at the friends and family that I have, and made it intentional to lean into those people that hype me up. Old and new friends. Family that I see and family that live further away that I don’t see. Coworkers. Even strangers I met through Instagram. I have saved all my text messages, IG and FB messages that I’ve received from people, reaching out about my blog posts; those things keep me goin. That’s my hype. I see you, and I am rooting for you, too. I can be and will be your hype. Love has hurt me in so many ways this last year, and it has been what has kept me going in my healing thanks to my hype squad. The cure for burnout is not self-care. It is all of us caring about each other. We can’t do it alone. We need each other. Thank you, readers, for being part of my hype squad!
#30. Life is short, and time goes fast. Don’t waste it. As a child, you never really see or feel how quickly time goes. But fuck, watching Oriyus grow up has just really opened my eyes to how quickly time goes. It disappears. This last year of grief and healing has just disappeared. This calendar year and school year.. gone. It is really hard to believe that I need to be thinking about what Santa is going to be bringing Oriyus for Christmas this year, when I swear he just opened gifts a week ago. I think people have an easier time with how short life is and how quickly it passes us when we don’t sleep through it. When we are doing the things that bring us joy, with people we love us, that short, fast time we have, time is not wasted. We have one body, and we have one life. So cliché, but so important and so real. You can’t get any of it back or redo it, so spend it doing the things you want. The simple and the extreme.
My 30th year is full of a lot of hurtful, difficult memories with a lot of tears and pain. It has, also, been full of beautiful memories with a lot of laugh and love. Most of those memories have come from the painful ones through healing. I have turned those difficult memories into things that I can take from it, so that those memories happened for me. Obviously, this last year has taught me a lot, and I’m still growing through this period of my life. I wouldn’t say that I am healed, but I have grown and gotten stronger. I am liking who I am becoming.
Katie Kelly's Korner 