Notes on an Epiphany

I never thought that I would actually be at peace with myself. I was mistaken.

For so long, I've been trying to get to a place where I am really comfortable with myself. I wanted to know where I was going, when I was going to get there and how everything was going to turn out. I needed a schedule, a plan. I needed to be able to open up a map and see everything laid out for me or I felt panicked. I felt like I was behind everyone else that I knew. I felt like I hadn't accomplished anything with my life and that everything up until that point had been for nothing.

Because I had this grand scheme for myself, if anything, anything at all, went wrong, I was devastated. I didn't know how to handle it and I needed to do everything in my power to get things back on course. I would push to get things back where they needed, in my eyes, to be, even if that wasn't what was best for everyone involved. I needed to have the plan. My life was ticking away without me, and nothing was getting done.

Eventually, I started to realize how wrong things had become. No, wrong is too harsh a word. Things were incorrect. My life had, at point, the potential to be right, but things had gone off course and become, like I said, incorrect. I started seeing that and knew that I had to do something about it, even if it hurt, even if it tore everything I had been hoping for to shreds. So, I threw out the plan and started everything again.

It was terrible. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do and believe me, that is saying something. Since that moment, things have been up and down. It seems like a lot more up than down most of the time, but I have been able to live with that because of one thing: I am finally at peace with myself and my life.

It was blindingly simple. I woke up one day and realized that I was trying too hard. I'm sure many other people for many years have been coming to this same conclusion, but for me it was like walking turning off the pain centre in my brain during a migraine. I saw that I had been trying too hard to get things the way I wanted them to be, and that was stopping me from living and being who I was. Yes, that statement is covered in cheese, but that doesn't stop it from being true.

I've stopped trying. My life will come to me as it comes. I know that now. I will find what and who I need in due time. Right now, I'm happy. I'm content. I wouldn't change anything.