The Balancing Act

“Stay Inspired.” The motto of my life since I began exploring the outdoors and getting into things I shouldn’t, like travel books and Pinterest destination boards and climbing magazines and backpacking guides. I tell myself that I can do anything, I can get INTO anything if I have the desire and if I put in the effort. As a single, young adult with a dependable college degree and job stability, I remind myself that the potential for my life’s hobbies and interests is virtually unlimited. With nothing to hold me back I can try anything I’m curious about and devote time, money, and effort into it for as long as I’m interested. No sense in wasting away my free time watching show after show on Netflix when there are countless opportunities for adventure and growth in new pursuits that don’t have to do with a screen.

So I start to take interest in new things and ideas and I force myself to dream about what my life could be. Trouble is once I get a taste for something I just want to get into it more and more, get deeper involved in the learning, the skill, the experience. Longer vacations, more exotic places, more technical or strenuous climbs, and things that require actual gear, equipment, prep-work, and know-how. It’s at times exhilarating and other times overwhelming. Like getting into a body of water you might’ve thought was a pool with known bounds and an end that you could see, but finding out you actually just jumped into the ocean, which has no limits and in which you are likely to get lost or hurt.

On the exhilarating side, say you start taking short trips here and there with the small amount of PTO and funds you’ve saved up in the few years of working since college. A national park one weekend, a few months later the next one is easier, and maybe later that year your first excursion out of the country to dip your toes in the water of overseas travel… Initially your thirst gets quenched but it quickly grows stronger after your fun experience is over because you realize there is so much more that you didn’t get to see or do.

It’s addicting. It’s both healthy and unhealthy at the same time: what other piece of life advice could be so encouraging – “Stay Inspired” - yet instill so much dissatisfaction over what you’re currently lacking? The motto originally stuck for me because it kept me looking positively towards the future at something - anything - that tilted my head up instead of down when I was going through a rough time. But now I’m trying to balance a scale with one side holding ‘gratitude and contentedness’ and the other holding ‘dreams and aspirations.’ I can’t seem to find the middle ground where I have a healthy yearning for adventure and progression without becoming unhappy with my existing state. And on the other hand, the last thing I want to do is become complacent with where I am and let the thirst die out because I tell myself I have it good here and now.

As I cruise through my twenties faster than an easy route at the climbing gym at the beginning of a session, my concern over this struggle starts to develop some weight. Just like the ever-common young adult desire to figure out one’s career/life calling or to eventually settle down and build a life with ‘the one’ (if he or she can be found), this threat comes looming with the knowledge that time is not infinite despite being young. In what direction do I begin to point all my decisions now so that the trajectory I take does not leave me regretting missed opportunities in 5, 10, 15 years’ time? Because the fact is each decision does matter and have consequences. With every choice I make about how to spend my time and who to spend it with, I am either moving forward or staying in the same place.

Do I make the choices now to live my life full of pursuit of the exotic, striving forward with a gumption that causes me to put myself and my goals above everything else? The feared consequence of this path is unknowingly become a friendless, selfish, never-happy dream chaser, forgoing meaningful friendships and giving up decent work opportunities in search of the PERFECT job and the PERFECT people with which to fill my life, those I think will help me achieve my goals. Will I be sacrificing what could become deep, life-enhancing relationships with people I know now if I choose to move or change jobs or only hang out with those interested in my same hobbies?

Perhaps a dialogue with the potential future version of me who settled too young would offer some perspective. 30 year old me who never really tried anything hard or exciting or different could still be alone, living in the same small city and attending the same community events every year. She could be decently content because she stayed in her comfort zone, but she’d know what was she was missing out on because of the copy of Lonely Planet’s “Where To Go When” book on her shelf that she can always browse, landing on any page to learn about an enthralling new part of the world she didn’t know about or didn’t think would be all that exciting to see. She’d have the memories of early trips to Moab and Zion National Park and her following research into more geographically close parks to explore, along with the slew of adventurous things you can do in them. She’d likely have chosen to kill any interest she had in developing a thriving career full of learning, excelling, and development, in order to settle down with a job that fulfilled SOME of the requirements: paid the bills, offered a decent level of responsibility and ownership, and was close enough to home.

It seems, however, that on both sides of the argument each perspective can say, “If you choose my way you will be giving something up.” I am reminded – no, I may be learning for the first time – that there is no such thing as the right decision.

So I continue on with my days in a strange overlap of moods, trying to live in the moment with only my immediate needs and wants at hand (my exercise plans for the week, how to solve the issues I’m facing at my job, what to do on my next day off), while trying to look at my life from a bigger picture mindset, asking the questions …

At what point should one start taking risks and stepping outside of their comfort zone?

At what point should one give up luxuries they have now in pursuit of dreams of what could be?

At what point should one place people over self in order to foster a relationship, when it means setting aside your developing ambitions, potentially making you unhappy in the long run?

For how long do you stay in a current situation of any kind before deciding it’s time to move on to bigger and better things?

Or at what point should one reign in what might be unrealistic, lofty expectations of life and accept the fact that you can’t have everything, and what you do have you should be grateful for?

The tightrope is thin, and it is stretched tight. I know if I don’t take one step, there is no danger of falling. But life doesn’t happen until you start forcing yourself to ask the questions and come up with some answers, even if you’re not sure they are the right ones. 

With Cautious, Open Arms

2016 was not kind to me. A LOT of people felt screwed over, screwed up by 2016, myself included. Political reasons aside, did we all just have a hard time in our personal lives? I started my year out rough, I remember. By July I was seeing a therapist for sexual confusion, anxiety and depression, extreme cognitive dissonance over religion/spiritual beliefs, and general inner turmoil surrounding dating and my possibility to even be in a healthy relationship. In my mind I had gone crazy. I sought doctors and even psychiatrists, googling every mental disorder on the internet trying to figure out what was plaguing me.

In the worst of the year, I see now that I had been unnecessarily beating myself up for everything that wasn’t even my fault or in my control. The negative messages were so strong, the only way to explain it is that it felt like someone else was in my head telling me constant lies about my lack of self-worth. It got worse as the year progressed. On top of the back and forth with God, which messed me up beyond explanation, my heart took a beating when I tried to date someone from my past who I had no business dating, fooling myself and setting my fragile self up for failure. It ended with a series of emotional arguments that left both of us more hurt and confused about life and love and the possibility of anything working for two people at the same time at all.

It was hard to be kind. I grew numb to things and people, angry at everything. I went about my days in retreated silence, passing strangers who probably thought I was a very mean person due to the pained expression always on my face. I didn’t bother to try to change it. I was in pain. Living was painful; I was just trying to get through the days.

I finally decided I would have to let go of God and religion. For a while I had been trying to hang on, even after the months of extreme roller coaster ups and downs. I needed to not FEEL anything about it for a while. I was sick of crying. I was sick of obsessing. For my own mental sake, I let God go completely and forced painful things into locked boxes in my mind, and I think I began to heal. I spent a lot of time outside, hiking everywhere I knew I could, whether or not I felt like it was doing good things for my soul. I distracted myself from the shattered mental state I was in by chasing experiences and fun things to do, because that was all I could look forward to. The distractions lasted a moment, at first. I learned to operate very selfishly, and I think I’m still doing that in a sense, and maybe that’s just what everyone else does and I’m just now catching on. Eventually I learned how to laugh again and that I could make other people laugh and that my presence is valuable to some.

It’s hard to look back on 2016 and even think about these painful memories. The lies. The utter self-hatred. The absolute hopelessness. Does it mean that I’m not healed if I am crying now because of it, still? I tried as hard as I could NOT to look back because it was the only way I could move forward, but I didn’t actually deal with any of it, unless burying an issue and moving on counts as ‘dealing’. With religion, anyway, there was nothing else I could do. I had to give up, and I present-tense, have to be an agnostic that says, “I don’t know,” or else I will get caught in the relentless hurricane of questions and attempts at reconciliations and trying to make everything cohesively make sense on one side or the other, which I’ve just decided is impossible.

I wish I could pray to someone and know that I am being heard and looked out for. It’s a comforting thing when I let myself believe that’s true, but it can only go that far. I can only use God for comfort and security, nothing else, otherwise that’s when the world falls apart and I can’t function without analyzing and destroying everything in my life.

A new year is upon us already, and I’ve been gearing up for some time now. Last year at this time I was caught off guard by the fact that I let a year go by without accomplishing much of anything. I started 2016 lonely, insecure, doubtful, and lost. It had only been the beginning. This new year though, I saw it coming months ahead of time and prepped myself so I wouldn’t be in the same dismal situation. Honestly I am just proud and glad to have made it through.

Reflections on the new year are good, I’ve decided, at least this time around. I can see where I came from, and I can rejoice in my improvements. However, I will not pretend that I’m invincible now just because I’m doing much better. I will not proclaim 2017 is about to be the greatest year, because what if it also sucks? It could potentially be worse; it will undoubtedly have its own trials, and I must be prepared for that. A much needed reminder at the start of this new calendar is that I am still a work in progress. I am still vulnerable, fragile, and not immune to relapses. I have had panic attacks and serious breakdowns in the last 6 months – something I shouldn’t try to forget. I humbly remember the hardships that have caused me to stumble, with honesty, but also with preparedness going forward.

I have a list in-the-making of vows to myself, rules of life, as you will. I’ve decided that my mental and emotional health is important, and I am happy to be doing what it takes to take care of ME. Most importantly, and the rule that every other motto stems from, is I promise to give myself grace, no matter what. I promise to never beat myself up because I think I’m falling short or have messed up. I promise to acknowledge that my life story is my own, and my journey looks different from everyone else’s. There is no ‘right way’ of doing things, and I have no obligation to measure my life’s accomplishments and movements to anything other than what works for me.

My life is also want I want to make of it. No matter what my relationship status is or how close a circle of friends I’m in, I have the freedom to partake in things that are new or interesting to me whenever I get bored. I have immense freedom to decide what to devote my time to, and thus, where my life will go. The possibilities are endless. Not only that, but I can also do hard things, and I can do them by myself. I am capable of overcoming fears by equipping myself with what I need to handle a situation. Nothing can hold me back if I put in the time to learn how to address the obstacles that might come up.

Lastly, I promise not to forget how big a support system I have in my family. They are not the people I want to spend every day with, and that’s OK, but I do not take them for granted. In all my life’s terrifying moments when I can only see the pathetic, thin, insecure shell of the self I usually am, my parents are there for me and ready to accept and embrace whoever it is I’m turning out to be. I can never forget the love my family has for me, or the progress I’ve made. To be emotionally and mentally healthy today is not something I have earned or deserved. Gratefulness has a place in my life, with or without a belief in god.

If 2016 was not your year, please follow my advice and reflect on the positives. Look at 2017 with optimistic but realistic eyes, and remember to love yourself with patience, be grateful for what you have, and just make sure you stick it out, because better times are ahead. I greet the new year with cautious, open arms. The trails I will hike, the sunsets I will see, the food I will make and eat. The story that is my own that I am writing all for myself. The grace I will have for myself, because I deserve not to loathe who I am and the mistakes I think I've made. The beauty I will see, the adventures I will have …

… to 2017.