The Awkward Years
The Awkward Years, as I have come to call this period, was a cringey, disconnected, disjointed, dystopian time in my life from 2014 to 2019.
I reference them often throughout this blog. Though there was nothing redemptive about this time that I can clearly identify, other than the content it’s given me now, this period was significant just for the fact that it was a good chunk of time that took a massive toll on my state of mind. Perhaps in eternity I may come to a different understanding of this time, but for the remainder of my earthly life it will remain a dark chapter that I wish never would have happened.
Excerpt from a handwritten journal entry from that time:
A dark, abysmal, all-consuming sense of dystopian foreboding and isolation grips me. The way the western sun hits the trees outside my new bedroom window at golden hour is otherworldly, eerie, despite its light and warmth. Mind boggling that the same golden hour sun hitting the lanky gently swaying palm trees against a turquoise sky back home used to fill my senses and my heart. But I’m far from home, literally and figuratively. I’m in a prison, even though that prison is mostly in my own mind. Even, or, perhaps more aptly… especially, in a room full of people I feel like there is an invisible assailant is holding a very real gun to my head, coercing me to smile and say that I’m thrilled to be here. My spirit recoils. The only thing I can do is wait it out. Only the (agonizingly slow) passage of time makes it go away, and I’m relatively ok again. At least for a while.
As with any personal story, there are many things I’m leaving out for the sake of privacy and brevity, but suffice to say there were multiple factors and issues going, all playing off of each other. For the purpose of this post I will share how I experienced this time rather than details about what led up to it or specific stuff that happened.
During this time I lost my joy and spark. Nothing worked, nothing flowed, nothing fit, though I went through the motions of it, did my best to make it so, or even tired to convince myself that it was going well. I lost the sense of authentic belonging, purpose, and full immersion in and engagement with life that I had come to cherish so much from previous times. I felt totally disconnected from me.
I lived with a plastered on brave face pretending I was ok when in reality I was dying a thousand deaths inside. I felt like I would never have a meaningful life again. I struggled and fumbled a lot professionally at dead end matrix jobs which was really hard after having done so well the previous 10 years in journalism. I felt like everything that mattered to me kept slipping further away in spite of my most fervent prayers and best good faith efforts to achieve them. The things that used to bring me joy no longer did so I just stopped doing them or, rather, stopped trying to find joy in them. I didn’t want to associate joyful activities with a negative experience. They just served as painful reminders of happier times.
The mind numbing drone of endless, unimportant, but necessary braindead small talk comprised 98% of my daily human interactions for a good portion of that time, most of it with matrix simps and robots. And on top of that, pretending to care or like any of it mattered. I tried to find the supposed “good” in everything as we’re told, but still felt so alone, worthless, vulnerable, and hopeless. I think the crux of the dystopian cringe was that I felt trapped in a life not of my choosing; not knowing how I got there when I thought I had been doing all the right things to be successful.
All of it took a massive a toll on my spirit, but also on my face, on my weight, and my cognitive function. It even chipped away at my femininity and softness. In light of where I am now and despite of many of my current hardships, remembering the plastered on brave face/gotta be a good little trooper survival mentality day in and day out for so long feels so dehumanizing now. It’s no wonder it wreaked havoc on my mind and body. I learned that there are very real physical implications to living with chronic toxic stress and, dare I say, living a lie. It’s a big reason I have come to value truth and principled authenticity so much.
Oddly enough, the pandemic was what saved me. For all it’s problems, for the purpose of this experience, it broke the streak of what easily could have become a “no way of life” way of life. 2021 was a little better but still challenging, its only bright spot being that I began a weight loss journey. But for all it’s sucking, the pandemic, at the time it hit, saved me. It’s my own Romans 8:28.
I have come to relate to The Awkward Years as an abusive relationship I escaped from. Like an abusive partner, it surely would have escalated and killed me had it not been for the pandemic. It would have killed my spirit first and shortly thereafter, my body. I felt like I was coming dangerously close to both from how beat down and discouraged I was. I still struggle with very real terror that at the flip of a switch life could take me down that dark path again, and that this time I would not recover. Kind of like the fear of an abusive ex tracking you down after you’ve escaped; always looking over your shoulder.
The collective angst of The Awkward Years, the pandemic, my mom’s dementia and everything that came with it, brought me to a place where I was ready for a meaningful fresh start, after so many years of trying. Part of that fresh start involved breaking chains that needed to be broken and embarking on what will hopefully be my last attempt at getting physically healthy once and for all.
Life is still really hard right now but having new paradigm shifting long term goals, and being intentional and proactive about life, including starting up this blog again and writing regularly, is giving me a sense of empowerment that I desperately needed.
And though I still look over my shoulder much more than I care to admit, I am no longer in that dark dystopian place mentally anymore. By the grace of God, I never will be again. I want The Awkward Years to stay in their hazmat bag where they belong and be thrown into the incinerator. I never ever want to be there again mentally or circumstantially. I simply long to live a meaningful, authentic, truth-based life that I don’t have to strategize escaping from. It’s the only way that life is worth living.
