No one is coming to save you.

I refuse to lie to you. To say that this post started off as a motivational essay - that it was meant to stir all your positive feelings and leave you warm and fuzzy about the motivations of people - is untrue. That would be a falsehood and these days I have simply lost my patience for untruths and hidden meanings and standing behind curtains to save face. No, this essay is a fiery rant and I hope you read it as such. It is a therapeutic release of the pent up frustration I've been feeling for months - maybe even years. Maybe even my whole life. Regardless, I am tired and angry and the flame has grown just large enough and it's time it came out because I have finally had enough. And since everyone else seems to be afraid, I'm going to be the one to say it:

No one is coming to save you.

Can I yell it from the mountain tops? Can I scream it on the street? Can I post it all over Facebook and plaster it on every wall? The answer is no, I cannot. But I can write about it.

Let me provide some context. I come from a lineage of proud, loud, and independent people - most notably some of the strongest women I've ever met. And one thing that they instilled deep deep inside me is the understanding that nothing is owed to you in this life. Not a single moment is guaranteed. So if you want to be going somewhere, or doing something, or fighting the good fight - then you better pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get going with a sense that you'll likely hit some snags along the way. And it's this sentiment that has stuck with me through every painful class, difficult job, countless rejections, and broken hearts.

Which leads to me today, where I've found myself swimming in sea of negative, hostile, unmotivated, and apathetic people. I'm not sure if it's a reflection of my environment and current peers, a current state of the world, the plague of social media and millennial angst, or perhaps a quarter-life crisis. But after months of feeling a resigned sense of drowning in that sea, I have decided to take back the reins, which somewhere along the way I apparently handed out to the negative ninnies. 

I'm making moves and taking back the control of my own damn life and feelings - no more feeling down and out, no more feeding into the negative work morale, no more listening to incessant complaints of those who chose to do nothing for themselves while whimpering every step of the way that no one is doing it for them, no more sulking around with people who choose to be unhappy, who are unkind, who refuse to stand up for themselves or anyone else, who are unwilling to shake up the world to make it better. Some things (and people) have got. to. go. And if you're not willing to be part of the change, then I'm going to have to kindly ask for you to get out of the way. 

In other words, I am editing my life and I choose to be happy because it is good for my health. 

It is your duty to edit it frequently and ruthlessly. Just like you can't blame your bad mood on a day of the week, you can't blame the people that surround you for a bad life or attitude. Only you have the agency to take ownership of your own unhappiness, resentment, anger, and other harbored negativity. Only you can decide if you are going to let life pass you by or if you want to be an active participant. 

Maturity comes when you stop making excuses and start making changes. And changes, even ones for the better, are always accompanied by drawbacks and discomfort, but you are never going to find happiness in the comfort of your apathy anyway.

Let's be clear - I am not talking about the variety of systematic injustices of the world - we are all allowed to rage about that. I am also not ignoring that fact that we have bad days. You're allowed to have a bad day - but a bad day doesn't have to define you. You're allowed to turn your own day around. You're allowed to stand your ground and say no to the negative ninnies trying to bring you down. You're allowed to refuse to give others the power to defeat you - to stand up and claim your territory and take up space. I would dare to say it's encouraged. I'm talking about the choice to let life happen to you instead of happening to life. The only person whose responsibility it is to wake you up, get something done, be a boss, and to silence the haters...is you.

So don't be a prisoner within your own life. Don't let other people define what happiness is for you. Don't give other people the power to dictate your worth. 

Let your life be loud!

Start anew, right now. Start right where you are with what you have. Take the first step. Feel the doubt and nervous hands shaking. Start with the trembling voice and don't stop. The transformation is sometimes painful, but you are not falling apart. You are falling into something unknown with the capacity to be something better than you imagined. But you must start.

I have a theory: people bask in their own unhappiness, they bring others down and stew in negativity, because they are AFRAID. 

Afraid to be happy. Afraid that the steps between where they are and where they want to be will be rough - and they may be. Nothing is promised, so when we reach out toward the things in life we want, we fear the potential rejection. We fear that when we finally do find what we thought we wanted, we'll be disappointed or worse, it won't last forever. But you cannot let the fear of a mistake or a misstep along the way control you. 

Sure - there are no do-overs, no repeats or playback. And you will not always be strong, but you can always be brave. Give yourself the grace to have some scrapes - no success story was written in a day. Beautiful things have dents and scratches too, and that includes you.

But one thing you should never do is build your life trying to make anyone else happy or thinking that anyone owes you for doing so. We only have a little time here, so don't waste it waiting for someone to rescue you. Your actions will speak for themselves. 

You are the hero of this story. You do not need to be saved.

You'll understand when you're older.

Once upon a time, this blog was a place where I wrote emphatically about discoveries I've made and I've used it as a space to share those revelations. I often wait until I feel compelled, that I've mastered a thought, before putting words to the screen and sharing them with others. I haven't written in many months - nearly half a year - and that has more to do with the fact that I haven't felt emphatically certain about much in that same amount of time than anything else.

Recently, I ventured out of my safe space - my happy little bubble of Columbus - and set my belongings down in Chicago. The view from my window is different, as well as my view of the world from my place within it. When you uproot yourself and take the leap, the certainty of things you once thought you knew gets thrown out with the bath water, and I am slowly starting to agree that the ground moving beneath my feet may be a welcome change. However, like all substantial changes in life, there also comes a steep learning curve. I'm learning to accept that my life, and consequently this blog, will have to be a little less of my concrete thoughts (which is a pretty slim list these days) and a whole lot more about  the misadventures of a life in progress.

My most significant realization of late is that the statement "You'll understand when you're older" is both true and false. There really are things you understand when you're older. While I lay no claim to the statement that I've "arrived" or actually reached this foggy conception of "older", I do think that my journey to the sweet, ripe age of 25 does grant me a platform to express that I've in some ways reached a place of "older" just enough. 

But I grapple with humanhood on a daily basis - with myself and my life and what it means to be alive and to wrestle with all the things I have and have not done. On the road to today I've seen more than once that the plans we make for ourselves never seem to unfold the way we expect. I've also found that most often, it's better that way. 

While I am still uncertain about the truths of humanness - the pain we inflict on one another, the words left unsaid, the joys of connection and love - and my life and what it's all supposed to mean, I do understand a few more things than I once did - like that some things just take time to reveal themselves as you grow and see a bit more of the world outside the little corner you occupy. 


I understand that you don't get to keep everyone forever and that is perfectly ok.

I understand that as you get older, so do your parents.

I understand that sometimes you won't get an answer and sometimes you don't deserve one.

I understand that the less you give a damn about what other people think, the happier you will be.

I understand that once something is said, it cannot be forgotten.

I understand that even when parting is expected, goodbyes are still hard.

I understand that interest is not your friend and budgets are necessary.

I understand that you can love people who are absolutely wrong for you and that you can love people who will not love you back.

I understand that when you love someone - anyone, in any way - and they love you back, it's really the very best of all things.

I understand that the world can be an awful, scary, dangerous place.

I understand that the world can be an awe-inspiring, joyful, beautiful place.

I understand that no matter how much time you think you need or have, the sun will set and the sun will rise and it has absolutely nothing to do with you.

I live by a grand, magnificent lake now. Sometimes I walk there after work just to sit and stare - at the vastness and the strength of the tide and how so much is held just beneath the surface. It's an entire world I cannot see from where I sit - and that's how it feels to look all the things I don't understand right in the face. Part of this process of fumbling through adulthood is knowing that I never will. While I feel surrounded by the mounting uncertainty, I hold on to the bits I have come to know as truth and attempt to push the anxiety of much of the unknown and nonsense into the universe. 

There is no grand conclusion to be had, no poignant stopping point. I guess, more than anything, I hope that if you feel like the path is uncertain and it all seems too much to take in right now, and that the not-knowing has got in you a place where you feel both happy and sad ... you are not alone. Despite the stumbling through and scars from well-intended but ill-fated missteps and mistakes, the journey is just beginning and you don't have to know it all to move forward with the intention to leave this place better than you found it. So if you're not quite sure where to start, please know that kindness and bravery will get you nearly every place you need to go.