For four years I have been grinding away – throwing letters plucked from my computer – at a boulder I thought was blocking me from success; from happiness. I would wake up in the morning, and work. Even staying in bed with my ex partner on a Saturday morning would make me guilty. After a night out at the movies, my anxiety – on more than one occasion – turned me into a nightmare: a mess of shakes and insecurity. I would count the number of hours I now considered ‘lost’ on my fingers, as I’d simultaneously be saying out loud ‘nothing is wrong’ with a voice shaking with rage.

I was angry at time. I was angry at joy. I was angry at the job that ate away at weeks I felt I had nothing to show for, and – especially during those 1000’s of hours I spent working for minimum wage – I was angry at my life.

And what was worse, nothing I did was ‘working.’

‘Working?’

I don’t even know what I mean by that. I don’t know who’s attention I was trying to grab. I don’t know who I wanted to notice me, because looking back I don’t think there’s a single pair of eyes in the world that would have satisfied me.

I obsessed over perfection.

At one point, about three years ago I was exercising nine times a week, while also trying to get around six hours of sleep a night. That’s all that I would allow myself. That’s all that I said– and I said this with vehemence– I needed.

But then, when I inevitably slept until 11am on a Saturday morning, I would beat myself until 4pm with phrases sprinkled charitably with self-hatred. I was in class at that time too. I couldn’t understand why it was so hard for me to stay awake. I felt like a failure. I felt like I was always falling behind, and I felt angry at everyone who I blamed for my invisibility.

I’ve had some breakthroughs recently.

The driving force behind one of these personal breakthrough has been exhaustion. Over the last two weeks, I’ve been feeling incredibly tired, and not tired like ‘I think I need nap.’ My spirit has been feeling tired.

About a week ago, I walked down Main street feeling incredibly bored. The thought of sitting down in a cafe with my computer made me feel nauseous. I didn’t want to work. I couldn’t work. Even the thought of trying to move myself forward in any way made me feel… disinterested. Lethargic. I didn’t care.

This feeling of emptiness skirted on the rim of depression without ever quite falling in. I wasn’t consumed by the feeling, but sort of watched it with curiosity – a bored curiosity, but curiosity nevertheless. Somehow, I was able to keep my rational mind about me, and decided not to fight it. I felt like, in a weird way, I’d worked for this feeling. I’d earned this feeling.
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I looked at my life. I looked at the way I had been approaching my personal projects, like this blog for instance. It’s embarrassing to admit this, but I have spent a ridiculous amount of hours making plans for posting strategies that I rarely followed through on. I’d announce ‘challenges’ that I’d give up writing about in a week. Why did I do that? Because I didn’t want to make a posting strategy. The things I was forcing myself to write about me didn’t actually interest me. I was trying to write about topics I thought others would be interested in reading, which is such a bullshit approach to life!

I was trying insanely hard to do everything right by creating a life I thought others could respect. I forgot that the only person who needed to respect my life was me. I forgot that the only person who could enjoy my life, was me. I sort of forgot that… this thing I was doing, was my life. Is my life.

I wasn’t looking through my own eyes.

My self-perception was flawed. I saw myself as a victim. In my relationships, I imagined – without realizing it – myself in a reality where I had to work to be accepted – SCREAM to be accepted. This reality I’d created was dense. Just like my experience with depression in Middle School and High School, there was no one who could have told me that I was wrong, and that I would have believed with my heart – which is a different thing from believing something with your head.

I recently read the book ‘Let Your Life Speak’ by Parker J. Palmer.

I read it twice (I never do that). I’d like to share a passage with you:

“If the self seeks not pathology but wholeness, as I believe it does, then the willful pursuit of vocation is an act of violence toward ourselves – violence in the name of a vision that, however lofty, is forced on the self from without rather than grown from within. True self, when violated, will always resist us sometimes at great cost, holding our lives in check until we honor its truth.”

So for the last two weeks, I have slowly been letting everything go – everything I believed I had to do. Most importantly, I’ve given myself permission to let go of ambitions that have ceased to feel like a choice, and turned into an obligation. I don’t want to feel obligated to live my life. I don’t want to feel obligated to be an artist. That word feels gross to me. There’s another feeling that I’m searching for. I’m still in the middle of that search, so this is all that I have to say for now.

Maybe you can relate. More writing on this subject is coming.

*The above art work is my own. I’m trying out some new avenues to explore myself creatively without judgement. I’m collaborating on a piece for Art For Impact with some other creative individuals at Another Space. This was my first contribution. I chose to put my eye inside of a box, because that’s what I used to see my world through. I box that I could see through, but not engage through. That experience of my world is changing now, but I don’t want to get too heady about it ;).