Being "stuck" and losing someone to illness

It's amazing how much happens when we're faced with an illness of someone close to us. Some people cry, some stay as busy as humanly possible and some don't even notice because it doesn't hit them until...well, until it does. During a time of being "stuck" I, although extremely hard to cope with, think that illness of people close to me also has brought me a new perspective of this stage of stagnancy. Throughout this period in my life I've lost my grandmother, a friend and my grandpa.

I'd have to say that the one who left the most lasting impression on me was Laurens, Joey's former roommate and best friend. I met him shortly after Joey and I first started dating in September of 2007. He'd been battling cancer for a few years. At the point when I met him he'd just completed yet another surgery in efforts to kick the cancer out of his nervous system. Over the course of the 4-5 months I got to know Laurens, and he apparently liked me enough to even open up to me about a few things. It wasn't the actual topics or information that was important as much as the fact that he felt comfortable enough to talk to me about such things. It was such a great feeling because as I got to know and care about Joey, I wanted to make sure that his best friend approved.

As the months went on from fall to winter his illness affected me more and more. I felt stupid about the things that bothered me and the worries that consumed my mind. I remember as I was spending a day at the mall shopping for gifts for my family I talked to Joey and told him how stupid I felt, doing such a petty task like buying gifts when his best friend just wanted to make it to SEE Christmas. Doctors tried every possible treatment, including experimental drugs but nothing worked. Laurens died on February 18, 2008 at the age of 31.

The whole experience was very emotional and very much an eye opener. Although it doesn't always seem like it to those around me, I feel as though I've developed (and will continue to develop) a far more organic outlook. Mental health (be it to talk to someone or exercise) is extremely important to me now, and I do whatever I need to in order to achieve the best possible mental health. Doing what makes me happy is of the utmost importance. The way I see it, if the world were to be destroyed by a natural disaster tomorrow, would I be happy doing what I'm doing today?

Its been a lot to think about, especially in the past year. With this new point of view, I've tried to expel as much negativity from my life as possible. This includes habits, thoughts and quite frankly, it includes people as well. We only have so much time while we're here, and the time that I have that's free I don't necessarily want to spend with anyone who does not have a positive influence in my life. This includes people who express feelings of judgement, insecurity (which then is perpetrated onto others), closed mindedness or those who are afraid to leave their comfort zone and criticize those who are not afraid to do so. Negativity is like poison for your life, and it's contagious. I decided that I did not want that in my life, as much as I could help it.

Laurens died at a very young age, which could happen to anyone. The important point is it take everything you can in stride, and appreciate the positive things in your life. Looking back (especially now that I know what my next step will be) I feel pretty stupid for all my freakouts about being stuck in one spot. Here I was, totally panicking about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. When I met Laurens, he was wondering if he'd even HAVE a "rest of his life."

Keep loved ones close to you always, and do what makes you happy. At the end of the day, the other crap just doesn't matter.

How did I get here?

I can’t even begin to talk about how many times I had this thought once I realized that I definitely was somehow lost. I re-traced my steps and wondered where I’d gone wrong. How is it possible that I had so much structure and definitive path my whole life and now I have every opportunity in front of me and I feel like I’m at a dead end? I mostly felt this in my second job.

 

I took my second job as an escape from my first job. Things got to a point where I could not function at work because I was so frustrated and fed up with my Supervisor. Literally, I couldn’t come into work each day without being aggravated just knowing that I was going to have to interact with *Laura for 8 hours. This also wasn’t your regular run-of-the-mill ‘I don’t like my boss’ crap. It wasn’t just the fact that she was my boss. I was frustrated about a lot of things; the fact that the line between friendship and Supervisor/Employee were blurry, her communication skills were deplorable, my Supervisor had no experience or idea how to actually supervise, she had her own insecurities that filtered into her professional life and quite frankly, she just sucked in that portion of her job. However, because she sucked at it I suffered. I won’t get caught up in details – I’ll just leave it at the fact that I was pretty miserable. I left around my year and a half mark.

 

I took my second job because I just wanted to be in a setting where there was neutrality. Granted, this job was far less responsibility than a) I was used to or b) than I could handle but after being so tired of hating going to work each day I just wanted to be in a place where I did my job, went home and did whatever I wanted. I wanted some down time and a place where I didn’t hate to go each day and I thought this would also give me an opportunity to figure out what the hell I wanted. I will admit, a sleep medicine clinic is not your regular doctor’s office and there ARE things to learn and understand in order to do your job, but once you learn them you’re pretty much set. I learned my job in about 4-6 months and at that point I started to feel the itch that I was not being used to my fullest potential. I asked for some more challenging work and kind of got it, but not really. I began looking for a new job about 9 months after I started. I looked for Coordinator types of positions, some Executive Assistant (which I wasn’t crazy about, but some of them looked quasi-interesting.) For some reason, any time I applied for jobs something about me in my resume screamed that I wasn’t able to handle anything besides triaging calls, making photo copies, filing and basically being the office b*tch. This was also frustrating to me because I KNOW myself and I know what I’m capable of. I have a great deal of skills that are just waiting to be used and no one was picking up on that.

 

There’s an overwhelming feeling that comes when you take a step back and realize that you’re nowhere NEAR where you thought you’d be when you imagine your adult life as you grow up.  I’ve only recently (read: in the past 4 years) come to understand the feelings anxiety and panic. I NEVER felt these growing up or in high school. At some point during this employment, I started to have panic attacks. Granted, they didn't happen all the time, but they DID happen out of nowhere. 

To be perfectly honest, as time went on here I grew to be ashamed of what I did not because of the actual job, but because I knew I wasn’t working up to my full potential and that made me ashamed of myself. So there I was; working a job that I didn't like, was not proud and feeling like crap about myself and no one in the outside work force seemed to acknowledge my potential and wanted me on their team for more than, 'How can I help you?' positions. I'm sure you can imagine just how pleasant I was at work. It didn't help at this point that my Supervisor was switched to someone new who was a NITWIT. Things just sucked.

Looking back, I still feel like this was an extremely difficult time for me. I'm so glad to be where I am now, but at the time when I had that, 'How did I get here?' moment it was terrifying because never in the past had I seen myself at 25 years old being in a meaningless job, unhappy, making crappy money and just basically existing.

I remember saying to myself once I was approaching the end of college that I thought I wanted to just get a job and exist for a while (literally that was how I worded it!) It took this experience to realize that's not what I wanted at all. Sometimes we need that kick in the pants to develop ourselves as human beings. In hindsight this is a great learning experience. 

Sometimes, it takes situations like this to realize that what you thought you wanted is actually the last thing you wanted. 

 

What was your 'How did I get here?' moment like?

Late night quote

While I don't have much time right now, at 2:30AM to write the post I know to be my next I wanted to share a quote that I've loved for a long time and is incredibly true:

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on."

~Robert Frost

I've always loved this quote. It's one of the few certain things we know about life. It's not stopping and we can't go back in time. We must keep moving forward.

This idea can definitely give some hope and a little comfort when going through a period of "stuckness." Every day that you go through it is one less day you will have to go through it, and one day closer to getting out of the place you're currently in. Each day that passes in your frozen state is a step toward getting past this point in your life and realizing what the best next step is for you to take. To me, this quote is not just an opinion, words of wisdom or even words of comfort; it's a fact. Life does go on, because it has to and WE have to.

What are some quotes that you think are applicable as well? What quotes or sayings are helpful in getting you through tough times of being stuck?

What just happened?

stuck: adj. a stoppage or a standstill (according to dictionary.com)

This word became the entire summation of the past 4 years for me. Granted, in hindsight, it doesn’t seem like a long time when you consider the 23 years I spent leading up to that with some type of plan, but while you're actually in the position of BEING stuck, its an eternity. I am a 26 year old who has JUST found out that her life will continue, and she will not live the rest of her life in a mind-numbing job that she knows she settled for when she accepted the offer in the first place.

It’s crazy how this emotion seemed to muster up and got increasingly intense until a sudden point when I realized all that I was feeling could be summed up in these three words. All my life I had a distinctive plan and path I was going down. There was never a question as to what the next step in life would be. As a kid you go to school, work hard especially in high school to make it into college, you go to college, graduate and get a job in your major field of study, right? Wow, I really wish I'd know just how different life is outside 'the plan' or more importantly that plans don't really matter when push comes to shove. Life often does not give a rat's a** about your plan and when that happens, you're left to figure it out.

This notion of, 'What just happened?' occurred to me once I'd been at my second job since college for about 6 months. I took the job to get out of my first one, because I was so unhappy. I couldn't believe that after the money, time and education THIS is what I was doing. I was so unhappy, bored and irritable. I began to think of all the other possible ways I could be spending my time. I began to look into new jobs and schools. After much looking and researching it finally dawned on me: I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do. I knew this job was not what I wanted to be doing, but I also could not pinpoint how I did want to be spending my time. How the hell are you supposed to move forward when there's a wall in front of you?

This feeling is scary and almost claustrophobic. It gives you a feeling that you have no control over your life. And for someone like me, who has little patience to begin with, this was not a good place for me to be. All I wanted to do was move forward with my life, but it seemed as if there were this new, unstoppable force freezing me into one spot: stuck.

Have you ever experienced 'the wall'?

Intro's

Hello Readers:

Welcome to the window into my crazy little head! I started this blog because I’m now looking back on what I’ve experienced through the last 4 years and definitely wished I had something similar to read so I could rest assured that I wasn’t a) crazy or b) alone. I can’t believe how much I’ve seen and how much I’ve grown. The jobs I’ve had, people I have met and those whom I lost were all there for a reason and now that I’m moving on to the next chapter in my life I’m finally ready to reflect and share some of the lessons I’ve learned and ones I hope will help people who read this. I suppose some would call it a Quarter-Life Crisis, but quite honestly, I think these feelings and experiences can happen at any point in life. The fact that it’s Quarter-Life only really makes sense because I’m in my mid-20s.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me introduce...myself. My name is Hillary and I am a soon-to-be 27 year old female living in the Boston area. I grew up in New York and moved to Boston for college. I graduated in 2005 and for one reason or another have been here ever since. I’ve just about completed the most emotional, unstable and uncomfortable 4 years of my entire life. The theme of the past 4 years? “What the hell am I doing with my life?!” I think it probably has been one of the most exhausting and scary things I’ve ever been through but I know that as a result of it all, I’m now on a track that I believe is the one that will make me very happy. I recently was accepted to the Pratt Institute for a Masters program. I begin on August 31st, and I’m absolutely jazzed!

That being said, I plan to open myself up to those reading and share a lot of intimate details and experiences from my life. I hope some readers can relate, and I am open to comments and similar experiences. I would like this to be a safe and accepting space where people can express their feelings of frustration, anxiety, or anything you’re feeling during this stage in your life. After all, much of our learning happens when we interact with one another. My goal through this blog is if nothing else, is for those who are currently faced with this overwhelming sense of ‘What the hell am I doing with my life?’ will develop some faith that there is light at the end of the tunnel and that they will see it soon and see that others are feeling it as well.

This is my experience as I’ve come to understand it. I’m sure as even more time goes on that I will understand even more about it and why it was such an important stage in my life despite how anxious, terrified, emotional and depressed I was at times.

To describe this stage, I can think of only one word to define it: stuck.

Thanks for reading. This is probably one of the most difficult things times in your life, but please know that you are NOT alone. People around you may not talk about it or may not seem like they are facing the same situation, but there are many of us out there! I’m living proof! Take comfort in that.

Finally, remember that when all else fails, try to have faith and surround yourself with the ones you love. They will be the ones to keep you sane during this time of what seems like total insanity. Make those people your foundation...because more than likely they are.


Be well,
Hillary