This has been one of the biggest decades of my life. I went from 15 to 25, I graduated high school and college, it became legal for me to drink and to vote, and people my age went from breaking curfews to having families. Crazy stuff. And these are the years everyone tells us are the best years of our life, college, and high school. But I pose a challenge to that standard.
I graduated from a high school I hated, took over 7 years to graduate college with a degree that costs me $100,000 and hasn’t landed me a job yet. I flunked a semester, withdrew for a semester, and skipped multiple semesters just because I didn’t have it together. I tried to drop out, started cutting, and tried to end my life. So yea, maybe not the best decade of my life, and 2019 was not the best year but it was the first year I had any hope in a long time.
2019 was the year when I went back to school to finish up the last semester of a degree that took me entirely too long. Coming back from a semester off due to attending TMS treatment for my severe depression, 2019 was the first year since starting college that I felt like I could handle what life was throwing at me. I finished up my classes with As and Bs and got to graduate in May after 7 years of off and on again college.
Graduating after so many years, left me without a clue what was to come next in life. I applied for jobs like crazy but I had learned some things after so many years. Mental health, for me, is always going to be the most important thing. Doing jobs in stuffy office buildings with cubicles and strict dress codes dropped me quickly back in the cycle of losing the will to keep going. This meant the environment was important to me when deciding on a job. Some folks would call me overly picky, but it took me a long time to get back to a point in life where I wanted to live it and I’m not willing to give that up for a paycheck. So I’ve been doing odd jobs while still living at home, and still applying to various opportunities. Perhaps in the new year, I’ll have a job.
it took me a long time to get back to a point in life where I wanted to live it and I’m not willing to give that up for a pay check
In 2019 I lost my best friend, my dog, my first ever pet. Bear was with me for 10 years and was the first pet I ever had. As a child who wanted a dog their whole life, Bear was the answer to a dozen letters to Santa and an infinite number of wishes on stars. I adopted him a few days away from my birthday at 15. Despite having two sisters and the official line being that he was a “family pet”, he was my dog. I picked him and named him and trained him. I had never lost a pet before and I would like to say I was prepared but I don’t think anyone ever is. We put him down after days of not eating and severe anemia. I cried for the first time in years. No one can ever replace your childhood dog, your first love.
In 2019, I started getting into an abundance mindset when related to money. This one was hard for me. I was raised in a house where there was never quite enough cash to go around. Money was rare and precious and hard to obtain. I’m coming to realize that it is not the mindset that one should have when attempting to create a life that is not constricted by your paycheck. There is money everywhere; it is being traded and made and spent and lost and gained faster than we can even blink. If someone had $100,000 to loan to a broke high schooler for a college degree that may or may not pan out, and if there are enough someones out there for us all to get loans for college, then surely there are enough people out there willing to pay us $100,000 for something else valuable. There is money to be made.
There is money everywhere; it is being traded and made and spent and lost and gained faster than we can even blink
2019 is the first year where I have ever felt like I am controlling my life’s direction instead of simply hanging on for dear life. 2019 is the first year I have been excited about the new year and what it might bring. 2019 is the end of a decade meant to be the best years of my life, but I know its just the beginning.
