Tag: twenties

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Late February, 2016

Currently feeling: Vulnerable and confused.

Vulnerable because I’ve been doing things and having conversations with people and just generally putting myself in situations that are outside my comfort zone pretty consistently these last few weeks.

Confused because I’ve been constantly questioning myself lately–who am I and what am I doing in this life and what do I want? I feel as if I’ve having an identity crisis of personality and ideology and values. Am I really an introvert or do I just have social anxiety? But can I call myself an extrovert–that goes against everything I know about myself. Maybe I’m somewhere in the middle because I do need my alone time but also have discovered over the past few months how much I thrive with people. What do I actually want and how will I accomplish that?

Thoughts and feelings and ideas are racing through my brain at lighting speed. I don’t know how to silence them. I’m struggling with concentrating. With just sitting still.

I’m eager to go home, yet want to make the most of my last month and a half abroad. Do I really want to spend all of March and half of April traveling? Honestly? No. I’m so exhausted from everything that my time abroad has taught me and I just want to go home. But plane tickets are bought and budget airlines aren’t about convenience and getting your money back in ticket canceling and I don’t want to lose that money. I want to go to these places and I’m going to go to them, even though I don’t really want to right now…because I know I’ll regret it if I don’t.

I’m in a weird place right now. A place that is really hard in some respects, but I also know it is serving me so very well.

I don’t shy away from vulnerability and I guess it’s natural to feel confusion now and then, especially at 22.

So that’s me.

How have you been lately?

 

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This is a Post Where I Make Important Realizations About Myself. That is All.

Today is a day of clarity.

Let me tell you why.

These last few weeks have been…strange. Strange in a way that I haven’t really been able to put into words. I was very aware of feeling off, but I didn’t really know how to describe it to anyone–let alone, myself–so I didn’t. I wasn’t ignoring the feeling, per se. I was more confused than anything. Being in a new town, in a new job, in a completely different country–it is all so much, and processing everything has been really hard. Unable to describe my own feelings but yearning to write, I turned to fiction to soothe my nerves…yet, I was still on edge…because although nothing was seriously wrong, I still didn’t know how to describe all these feelings going on inside of me.

But…I think I can now. After a much needed weekend to myself (seriously, I’ve done next to nothing, and it’s been amazing), I feel like I have the space to distance myself from these emotions and really consider them.

Let me explain:

Being in Chiang Mai during my October TESOL course was easily one of the highest emotional periods of my life. The amount of joy and happiness I experienced during October 2015–for such a consecutive period of time–was simply unheard of for me before that. It’s not that I was unhappy before my TESOL course. It’s not that life was terrible before TESOL. In fact, it was the exact opposite. My last year of college was an amazing period of personal growth. My last semester of college, specifically, was easily my best semester of college. A period of my life that I will always cherish. This past summer, working as an espresso bar barista at a gas station, of all places, was also an incredible experience for me. I pushed myself in new ways by working in the food service industry, and I can safely say that some of my coworkers fundamentally shaped me into the person I am today (and that is looking back to three months ago). I loved my job as a barista and will always cherish the, albeit temporary, home I Continue reading “This is a Post Where I Make Important Realizations About Myself. That is All.”

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#WeekendCoffeeShare–In Which I Unpack, Adjust, and Find Home

If we were having coffee, I’d be soo excited to see you!

It’s been ages since I’ve joined the Coffee Share and it feels so good to be back.

After five weeks of living out of a suitcase, I finally have a home. A month of TESOL training left little time for adequate blogging (I don’t do this blogging business for the stats but let me tell you, my stats have been terrible).

Now, though? Now, my suitcase is unpacked, my shoes are lined up by the door, and I’m sitting on my new bed in my new apartment and it feels so good.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about how crazy this week has been. It has been emotionally and physically exhausting. If you read this post, you’d know that I am no longer placed in Nong Khai, a province in Northeastern Thailand, where I was supposed to be teaching at a secondary school. I hadn’t even been there a week when I knew it just wasn’t right for me. This knowledge wasn’t necessarily something I could explain. It wasn’t culture shock. It was just this inborn knowledge that something wasn’t right about me being there.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about how on Friday, while visiting friends in Bangkok, an opportunity came up for me to accept another job…this time in Nakhon Pathom Province in Central Thailand. When I was offered the position, I didn’t hesitate. Everything about this new Continue reading “#WeekendCoffeeShare–In Which I Unpack, Adjust, and Find Home”

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Vulnerability

I’m feeling vulnerable right now.

For a lot of reasons, really. I don’t think I can properly explain it all entirely.

I’m feeling vulnerable and I’m going to tell you about it because I hate pretending I’m okay when I’m not and I think, in general, humans are too apt to cover up less-than-cheerful feelings. I think, in general, humans are too afraid to really feel.

Well, I’m feeling a lot right now and I’m not sure I can articulate all of those feels because their
pretty damn complex, but I’m going to make an effort because I’m a writer and this is how I do.

I’m feeling vulnerable because I spent the last hour of work today wiping counters that didn’t need to be wiped and washing dishes that didn’t need to be washed. I didn’t get a single order Continue reading “Vulnerability”

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Dear Doc…Or, a Birth Control Story

I was put on “the pill,” as they call it, in October of 2009.

Early one fall morning–the morning that my third attempt to earn my driver’s license was scheduled, in fact–a nasty, gut wrenching ovarian cyst erupted within me. Oh man, was it painful. I don’t think I’ve ever been in as much pain in my life. I remember writhing around on the couch, clutching the right side of my abdomen, wondering what the hell was wrong with me.

Well, needless to say, my license would end up taking one more month to obtain because that nasty, gut wrenching ovarian cyst, which I was worried might be appendicitis at the time, landed me in the Emergency Room.

Fast forward a week or two to my first ever trip to a gynecologist. A lady doctor. At 16, I felt so adult to be visiting such a doctor. At 16, I listened as my brand new gynecologist explained to me the benefits that birth control could have on my body–not just that it would help prevent further ovarian cysts erupting, but that it could help with acne, it would make my periods lighter, and of course, the obvious–it would keep me from pregnancy.

At 16, I was three years away from my first sexual experience and I sure as hell had no plans for sex in the immediate future…but lighter, regulated periods sure sounded nice and I couldn’t deny the fact that another ovarian cyst eruption was not at the top of my “to have happen again” list. So, I went and filled Continue reading “Dear Doc…Or, a Birth Control Story”

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Oh, You Just Made Me Feel a Bit Violated…

Do you want to go have sex in the bathroom?

Said the guy not two minutes after he asked to dance with me.

“Nah.”

I had nothing else to say to him on the matter. It wasn’t going to happen. Bathroom sex (we’re talking about public bathroom sex, mind you) isn’t exactly at the top of my bucket list. Well, actually, it’s not on my bucket list at all. Quite frankly, it sounds a bit raunchy to me. Plus, I’m not really one for hook ups. But that’s just me.

“Uh…okay, well it’s okay. We can still dance together.” Continue reading “Oh, You Just Made Me Feel a Bit Violated…”

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