a new perspective

i’ve spent a large portion of the last few years thinking about how happy i’ll be when whatever-the-next-milestone-in-my-life-is happens. first it was graduating college. then it was getting a ”real” job (one that wasn’t in a restaurant). then it was getting into grad school. then graduating grad school. the one that’s been hanging over my head through it all is finding that right person and getting married and having babies. watching my friends (and exes) do it has been less than easy. but you know, it’s been alright, because it’s nice to look forward to things, and thirty is the new twenty and eighty is the new fifty.

but holy hell. i‘m getting really tired of waiting for everything to be perfect for me to be happy. so i’m not going to wait anymore. i’m just going to be happy. i’m going to do what i need to do for me to be happy and as long as it’s not detrimental to anyone else, to hell with what the rest of them think.

i’d be lying like a cheap rug if i said that the fact that i just lost a friend at the old age of 31 had nothing to do with this new perspective. obviously the two are related, but i don’t think that makes this any less valid.

i’m horrible at change and i’m horrible at things not going according to plan, so the fact that my life is not what i planned when i was ten years old is not a thing i enjoy. but as several people have reminded me over the last few weeks, my life to this point, although it may have run way far  away from the original plan, has not been a waste. my experiences and my stories and my successes and my failures - although i would gladly unlearn some of the lessons they’ve taught me - have made me who i am and have put me where i am. and although hindsight is 20/20 and if i had known what i know now i would have likely made some different decisions, in the majority of cases, i made the best decision i could at the time.

i am here now. i can’t undo things. there are no do-overs, just do-betters. so today i choose my own happiness. today i quit caring what that looks like to the rest of the world. today i quit caring about what i “ought” to do. today i quit worrying about when my life will happen and when all these other things will happen that will make me happy. today i choose to release all the ghosts of my past that have been dragging me down, always reminding me of the things that didn’t work out the way i wanted them to or thought they should or hoped they would. today i choose to embrace where i am. today i choose me, and today i choose to be happy.