I’m not even sure how to begin this. My mind has been everywhere lately, so I decided to just spill it all to you. Not that you asked for it, but to externalize the chaos that is inside is its medicine.
When I was much younger, I imagined that being 24 would look a lot different than it does now. I imagined myself with a house and mortgage, a husband, perhaps a child, a secure career, and a small but healthy dose of community involvement. In other words, I anticipated a white picket fence fantasy. 24 has been nothing of the sort. I’m still pulling it together. Compared to those my age around me, I feel that I’m “late to life”. Others think I’m living life to its fullest already. I feel this constant pressure to explain myself and prove myself to my older colleagues because of my self-perceived fear that I am looked at by others solely through a demographical/social-cultural lens. I fear that if I express my generational culture, I’ll be perceived as less mature than what is actually, but if I fail to express who I am because of how I was made up, I will be at constant war with myself once again, a war I chose to cease fire on years ago. Internally, I feel a never-ending uphill battle between the views of others on myself, the view of myself on myself, and Caroline screaming to simply be noticed- and accepted.
I don’t believe in New Years resolutions. Resolutions often become dissolutions. Everything we are and desire to be is a work in progress. Each year I make one goal- a realistic, tailored, and achievable goal- that I can focus on all year. One that is so crucial to my growth as a human being that I can’t allow it to become a dissolution. One that nags at me every day I wake up to change, an insecurity perhaps. Though very uncomfortable and often times difficult, I have found myself proving that I am capable to none other than myself year after year. This year I “resolved” to letting go of others expectations, including those self-perceived. To hold weight on only that which I think of myself, nothing more, nothing less. This one seems to be the most challenging one yet as I learn to walk the line between anxiety-embellished, debilitating, overt self-awareness, and foolish, ignorant, arrogant over-confidence.
I think I feel good ending this post here. I almost feel like I said too much but maybe this is all part of the journey of letting go of expectations. This is my mind. I hope to share more vulnerabilities with you this year. Maybe then I’ll feel ever so slightly more comfortable with being all of myself.
“If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves.” ~ Galatians 6:3
Tea Time with Caroline 