Cutting Ties

Today I stumbled upon this image on my twitter newsfeed. It is meant to be a representation of cutting ties between two people.

Part of the reason this image struck such a chord with me was because it shows how one person always has a stronger connection than the other. Whenever a person leaves, be it a boyfriend or girlfriend, a friend, or a family member, one person always has a harder time accepting this loss than the other.

In my case, the person with more attachments was me. I had a large friend group when I was young, and easily shared my feelings, secrets, and desires with my friends and family. I was social, spending most weekends at one of my friend’s houses. Elementary, middle, and part of high school passed this way for me. Though my friend groups changed as I got involved in different extracurriculars and my interests changed, I never had a very difficult time opening up to new friends. I made connections, lots of them, with all the people in my life.

I suppose I am fortunate that I did not feel this strong tear until later in life, but when it happened, I was completely unprepared for the way it would make me feel. In the past, the people who left my life, either did so slowly and passively, as we just drifted apart, or not by choice, through old age or illness. Never before had I been so strikingly and suddenly cut out of someone’s life.

The details don’t need to be shared. Those closest to me know what happened and I prefer to keep it that way. All that I wish to share is that this was the day I found out that I was the person who was more attached. I struggled to understand why I was no longer needed in the life of someone I had once considered extremely important to me. I was hurt, upset, and confused, while it seemed as though the other was perfectly fine, in fact, happier.

From this moment on, something inside me changed. I could almost physically feel myself shrink inside. So many personal pieces of information and countless memories had been shared with this person, and they were gone in a snap. No longer was I so eager to open up to others, to share my feelings, my thoughts, my opinions. I was terrified that someone would do this to me again. Someone I considered important, who knew parts of me that weren’t as pretty and shiny as what I showed on the outside, could just disappear from my life again. Walking around, out in the world somewhere, would be a person who learned all my secrets, and then cut me out.

I didn’t want to be the person with the stronger connection anymore. I didn’t want to count on someone to listen to me and help me through my feelings knowing that they could, at any point, just disappear. So instead of sharing, I closed down. I worked through my emotions myself.

To this day I have a hard time opening up to people. I no longer have a large group of friends. I have a small number of close friends who I trust, and I couldn’t be more thankful for them. They are teaching me, slowly, that it is okay to open up again. That some people leave, but that teaches a lesson. I’m learning that the people who matter the most won’t leave, no matter how dark or sad some of my deepest feelings may be.

I may now have fewer close connections than I did before, but I know it is for the best. I learned a great deal about myself through having someone cut me out of their life. It forced me to reflect inwardly, and to choose the people in my life more carefully.

To everyone who has stuck by me, thank you so much. You know who you are and I don’t thank you enough for being in my life, listening to my ramblings, and helping me understand myself. I’m sorry I still struggle to open up, I’m working on it, I’m growing, and I’m so glad you are here to support me.

Falling Apart

“It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.” -Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

This quote by Suzanne Collins has been on my mind the past few days, and I must admit that I disagree with the message this quotation gives to readers. It sounds to me like this author is dissuading her readers from falling apart. Stay strong, don’t focus on the bad, don’t try to conquer all your demons, you might fall apart. Personally, I think this mentality is a large part of the reason so many people are unhappy, depressed, or feeling empty. How can you come to terms with the things that are challenging you if you are deterred from expressing your emotions. People aren’t always happy. Life is harder for some than it is for others. That’s okay. It’s okay to fall apart.

There is this entirely unfair assumption among the majority that someone cannot be depressed if they have everything in their life that should make them happy. I’d like to point out that emotions are not a choice. Wouldn’t life be easier if feelings were under voluntary control? They aren’t. Everyone knows that. Everyone has experienced a moment when their emotions did not match up with the setting they were in or their current success in life. No one should be held to the expectation that they will be happy at the proper moments and sad at others.

The point I am trying to make, is that there should not be any judgment in coming to terms with one’s emotions and trying to find a healthy way to deal with them. People use the phrase “fall apart” like it is a bad thing. As if the world suddenly just became so much that someone couldn’t take it anymore and “fell apart.” Why is it a sign of weakness and loss of control in our society to break down? Why can’t people sit down and talk about their struggles, their fears, and the thoughts that keep them up at night? Something in our world is not conducive to this type of conversation, so people hold in their feelings. They try to deal with things on their own, as best they can, until they can’t. Then they fall apart.

I must also disagree with Suzanne Collins on the point that it will take ten times longer to pull yourself back together. I think, once you truly fall apart and all the pain, hurt, confusion, anger, everything comes out, you never really go back to the person you were before. We all have moments in time we can reflect on, good or bad, that in some way changed our lives and shaped us into the people we are today. Falling apart like this is such a moment. I’m not insinuating that someone can never be happy again once they fall apart, quite the opposite, but I do believe that person never goes back to being exactly who they were before. Something has changed, they have expressed, and in some way, come to terms with some of their demons. Conquering them will be a challenge, but as a person takes on that challenge, rather than piecing themselves back together, they are expelling something toxic.

Like I warned everyone, this blog probably will not be very regular and will be a strange conglomeration of my thoughts, experiences, taste in music, favorite quotations, and maybe, if I’m ever brave enough to share, pieces of creative writing. The quotation I wrote about here has been bothering me recently and I was dying to express my own opinion of it.

Who Am I?

This seemingly simple question is one I’ve been struggling with for years and years. Normally, when you are asked who you are, people are looking for you to answer with your name and perhaps where you are from or what you do for a living, but there is so much more to a person than that. My name, my major in college, my hometown – these don’t define me. These are details, the adjectives of my life, the things that describe me in the most superficial and minimalistic way. Who I am, who I really am, is so much more than a name and a city. I am me.

The problem with this question is that everyone expects you to already have the answer. We live in a society where everyone is constantly forward thinking, planning for a future they cannot possibly anticipate. Accidents happen, mistakes are made, plans fall apart. Planning is important, but living in the present is just as crucial as planning for a future. Flexibility is a must in this uncertain world. It is, therefore, entirely unreasonable for us to ask our high school graduates to choose a direction for the rest of their lives. It is impossible for us to expect our college graduates to settle into a career and stay there for the long haul. Why do we need to revolve around money, financial planning, and good career decisions? How can I be expected to answer “who are you?” when I’m never even granted the opportunity to find out for myself?

I am not dismissing education. Quite the contrary, I am a passionate learner and believe that one’s education should end the day she dies. This being said, the educational climate I grew up in was not conducive to learning who I am as a person. School itself was one thing, but in this increasingly competitive world, there were also extra curricular activities, service work, learning a language, studying for standardized testing, choosing a college major, planning a future career, earning good grades in school, the list goes on and on. With 24 hours in a day, there is hardly enough time to breathe in between the never ending list of commitments. Unfortunately, none of these things help anyone discover who they really are as a person. To do that, a person needs to travel, read, contemplate, talk to family and friends, hike through the mountains, listen to music, to simply be.

I suppose some people find the time to squeeze learning who they are in between the school work, community service, and part-time jobs they hold in middle and high school. Perhaps some people were just born knowing exactly where they wanted to end up and who they were meant to be. Either way, I am not one of those people. I’m 21 years old, a junior in college working towards a bachelors of science in biology, and I’ve just found out that I don’t know myself as well as I should. So here I am, trying to make sense of myself and find who I am meant to be. I know it will not be an easy task, but just through writing this simple entry I’m learning more about the person I really am and the person I want to be. I know I have a solid knowledge base and moral compass to lead me on this journey.

I’ve given blogging a try before, but I lost interest and disappeared from my virtual home. I cannot promise that the same thing won’t happen here once more, but I am going to try. Lately, I feel like I have a million million thoughts, feelings, fears, and emotions floating through my brain. Writing is cathartic. When my feelings are typed or written out, they seem more manageable. Single words grouped together into phrases and sentences in the same familiar structure we all use to convey thoughts. This is something I can understand and make sense of.

Welcome to the ramblings of a hopelessly lost wanderer.