That’s So Shifty – Paradise Lost

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Mysterious Shift

The world is an infinite number of little mysteries. There is no way to change the past. Not that I know of, at least. No way to see into the future, either. This is glaringly true, but I had trouble accepting it. Until recently, I tried to “change” both. Relive the past to create the future. I needed to fit myself into the world with these things figured out. After all, my world gave me social media. It’s got all the solutions to these mysteries, doesn’t it? What to be… How to be… The answers have to be in there, right? 

Here’s the problem, though. Figuring it all out wasn’t gonna happen, and trying was just dumb. Other people might be patient enough, but apparently, I’m not. Maybe the key was to just not figure it out. To not worry about what my past is supposed to mean, or what the future could be. Is this the key to a whole and worthy life? I think it is. I was missing out on life stuck in a problem that had no solution.

Do you wonder what it would be like not to worry all the time? To stop taking the past apart and putting it back together? To stop asking “what if” in a constant attempt to manifest the future? Before wondering about all of this, I was exhausted. I would worry, dwell, and wish. Then, I would just give up, sigh, and call it fate. The problem was that I never got what I wanted. Now, though, I’m not worrying about any of it anymore. I can’t solve it. This is the answer key, and it’s awesome. I had to feel the helplessness of not solving it to feel my own power.

I got so tired of waiting and worrying about what I screwed up in the past. I was even more tired of trying to create my future. But, the tired and helpless feeling started scaring me. A lot. This fear was actually kind of amazing. I didn’t know what it really was at first. Once I started listening to it, though, I realized it was me fighting to get out. Why was it that I needed to know “why” all the time before I could make a decision? It all went blurry, and it needed to. What I’d been seeing wasn’t real. It wasn’t my life at all. 

I had been wishing for things thinking that the why was in there. I was sick of being so afraid to move. Then, not moving became even scarier. This is how the shift in my life started. When my new fear lit a fire. Life will never be truly clear, will it? When I decided to accept that life is a mystery and lean into it, strangely, I started to see so much more. Blurry and beautiful. It gave me courage to move.

Learning How to Move

In the Fall of 2021, my restlessness began. Damn, this fear really was different. It wasn’t the paralyzing kind. It was the screaming kind. The kind that screamed at me to do something. I was 22, and, like a lot of early twenty-somethings, my life just wasn’t where I wanted it. So, I moved. Literally and figuratively. I moved out on my own and decided not to continue in college.

It didn’t seem to matter that I didn’t have a clue where I wanted my life to go. I just knew that I had to make it go somewhere – anywhere but here. I admit that sometimes I really thought I was losing it. The weird part, though, was that this didn’t matter. Losing it or not, I had to move.

It was like a slow burn but all of a sudden. Expectations that didn’t have anything to do with what I wanted used to drive me. Maybe I had been taking the “safe” way by doing the things others told me I should. Things like graduating from college and getting that job with the exciting new title perfect for LinkedIn. Getting myself ready for the important relationships I’m supposed to have. The marriage and kids part. 

Do I want to get married? Finding “the one” is like forcing fate. I don’t even believe in fate now that my life is shifting. It looks backward to prove itself. Hoping it could take over was wasting my energy. What about kids? I don’t know yet. Do I really have to know now? I seriously hope not. When did I forget that this is only up to me? Since the world is a giant mystery, those choices become even more precious. When I don’t know what the future holds, the choices I do get are a wonderful gift from an anonymous giver who expects nothing in return.

Until I got really scared, what I expected from myself was driven by society. Big shout out to social media. And, since my family follows society, I followed my family. But slowly, instead of striving to meet these expectations, I had built a wall of doubt and anxiety around them. I was actually afraid of succeeding. 

Somehow I knew that this expected success meant even higher expectations that I would never understand. There was too much fear. The paralyzing kind. I was too insecure to see past it and ask myself what I really wanted. And then, I got that new fear that made me move. It was time to change how I was living and look at who I really was.

I became desperate to find a place in my mind where I could picture what I wanted out of life. A place that wasn’t already filled up with the other stuff I was supposed to want. I had become insecure, resentful, and hopeless wishing for this place. I had to move to find it. I moved through that slow burn to the all of a sudden realization of how scared I was not to go after what I wanted. This fear would help me face these feelings and shift my perception.

I began to think that maybe my life wasn’t a hopeless march for everyone else. Was there a rhythm just for me? Could I shift into a different way of seeing and feeling? A new vibe? I had no idea then that allowing myself to shift and find my authentic vibe would transform my feelings from emptiness, bitterness, and regret into worthiness, gratitude, and courage. 

Lost and Found

I started asking myself what I wanted and how I could get it. I had worked and saved money since I was thirteen. That was an accomplishment I could use. It had never occurred to me that I could afford to do some things for myself. I just thought I was supposed to save for the life that other people said I should have. A life that would reveal itself if I lived a certain way. 

Then, slowly but suddenly, I was certain. No revelation was going to happen without me believing in MY life. So, I shifted and began focusing on the one thing I could actually control – living the life I wanted. It had to be blurry and messy, but that turned out to be the place I was looking for.

I made a mental list of wants. I want to dance, go to concerts, make and edit videos, study languages, learn about other cultures, dream bigger, work to live, connect with awesome people, and love K-Pop. That’s a lot. But I didn’t care. I needed to try and make it all work for me, and if some of it didn’t, that’s okay, too. I was ready to ride on this mysterious journey.

If I wanted to live life my way, I needed to face that I wasn’t really living. I was just waiting. That’s a tough mirror to stare into. I had been waiting for someone else to find what I wanted for me. Now, I was staring right into it and could finally see everything I could go get myself. It didn’t even matter if I didn’t know what it was yet. No waiting required.

After deciding to move and go after what I wanted, I realized that, ironically, no one was really paying attention to how my life turned out. They just wanted the credit if it turned out well. I thought their opinions were much more important than they actually were. Those opinions satisfied something in them, not me. They were judging me for their own reasons. Reasons that had little to do with me. And I was letting them. I had been ignoring what I wanted thinking that “they” knew better. They don’t. 

Now, I think “So what?” Their preferred blueprint for my life should not drive anything. I really could give a completely different life, my actual chosen life, a chance. What do “they” know about what makes a happy life for me that I don’t? Not a damn thing.

Would I struggle? Yes! I was taking a chance and letting go of the person I thought I was supposed to be. I had to learn to love my life where it is. That’s hard for me. It isn’t my default setting. “Out there” had all the answers, didn’t it? Nope. The answers come from the inside out, and if I can’t figure it out, it has the strange effect of making me grateful that I get to try anyway.

Like I said at the beginning, life is a mystery. The realization that I won’t solve it is the best lesson of my life so far. I’m learning to stop struggling to figure out why I should do something before I do it. I don’t want to give in to the paralyzing fear. It’s awesome to say “Why not?” a whole lot more. For the first time, I really know that no one’s opinion of my life and choices is more important than mine.  

This doesn’t mean that I won’t keep listening to people and asking for their input. I’m actually a natural follower. And, in many situations, the people in my life are very supportive and positive influences. But, I had to realize how I was letting all of the outside influences keep me from really living. 

I’ll admit that even after I leaned into the shift, I continued to follow, and most likely will follow again, some expectations made up of what society says life should be at twenty-something. I am fighting the need for outside validation that I know is empty but is often tempting. By fighting, I’ve tapped into my shift and vibe. I’m giving myself permission to face my deepest fears. When I face them, I feel my vibe reminding me to live on my own terms. When the old fear creeps back in, I know it is trying to protect me. I tell it to let me through anyway.

I will continue to seek freedom. Freedom from a society whose validation will never be based on what is actually good and right for me. Freedom to pursue my own version of good and right. Embracing life on this journey. Always seeking and learning, succeeding and failing, in joy and through pain. Into the mystery. My way.

This is just the beginning!

Find “Trusting Me” on the Poems page

Learn more about my shift in That’s So Shifty – Paradise Found.