Remember when you were a little girl, outside in your sundress, spinning around and around in circles? Your mom would call out to you, “not so fast, you’ll make yourself dizzy.” You knew this to be true, but you didn’t care. You spun faster and faster, making tighter circles until you finally fell to the ground and the sky rolled above you. You closed your eyes as the sun beat do
wn, warm on your cheeks. You took a deep breath as the smell of spring filled your lungs and though your eye lids were draped shut, the world was still spinning. It was in this moment, for the first time, that life seemed to be standing still while simultaneously it was slipping through your fingertips. It would be years before you reconciled this feeling and reached out to grab it. You opened your eyes. Reality set in…
Here you are, twenty-something years later, and every other day you feel like the world is crashing, plummeting if you will, at your feet… and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s almost as bad as the time no one asked you to the eighth grade dance, so you had to go with your best girlfriends who weren’t asked either. (Miserable, I know… How did we ever survive?) Or the time you absolutely bombed that test in US History 2, whatever it was about. Do you catch my drift here?
Everything in life is temporary; including the feeling of the world coming to an end for the tenth time this week and its only Tuesday.
Like many of us, there are days that I have to take a minute to separate myself from my life. I have to physically take my mind and put it someplace else, just to avoid a distraction long enough to breathe. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? When your mind is running a million miles a minute, it’s pretty easy to forget to enjoy life’s little pleasures, such as a full breath of air.
So… how am I finally learning to get through a day without a mental breakdown? I’m spinning and spinning and spinning right off my axis and falling on whatever patch of grass is closest to me. I’m letting go. I’m tossing my hands up in the air. Whatever happens next is on the universe. I am only responsible for how I react. We all need this reminder sometimes.
Life on life’s terms is one of the more difficult concepts that I’ve been trying to master recently. It is only through years of trials and tribulations that I am just now gaining the hindsight knowledge to let the pieces fall where they may. In such a short time, this has become a beautiful blessing.
Someone once told me, “If it doesn’t make you happy, doesn’t make you money, or doesn’t make you a better person, then move on. Change the changeable. Be present in the moment. Smile, laugh and love. Free yourself from the burdens, the stress, and the stigma you carry on your shoulders and just be.” But, I am sure you know just as well as I do that unfortunately, that’s not how we are programmed. As the dominant species, humans believe they always know what’s best, meaning we must always be a step ahead, right? Wrong. Because when life begins to stray to unfamiliar grounds, we begin to panic.
We have to stop overthinking, because the reality of this is, we can’t control everything; that’s not how the universe works. Breathe and trust, and see what happens next. Until we let go, we will never understand why we held on.
It’s time to take control of your own destiny.
I am no expert but sometimes, I think that it’s better to learn from someone who was just in the same position as you not too long ago. Here is my advice: the main thing we must do is erase that picture of how things are “supposed to be” and stop being the biggest contributor to our own demise. You can visit a memory but you cannot dwell on the past because let’s face it, it is no longer something we can control. Close the previous chapters but enjoy the current ones while they last. Keep moving in the forward direction; it is a fearless act of selflessness. You owe it to yourself. Stop denying yourself the change to grow. It is the process of progression that we must strive for, whilst enjoying the moment were in. People often take for granted what is right in front of them. Were too busy spinning and spinning that when we finally let go, were left reaching for a world that we let slip through our fingertips.
Whatever you do, don’t let life pass you by without enjoying it.
