The Art of Not Being Ok

Being in my 20s is hard. But what’s harder is the fact that I must struggle with life to get what I want. No, let me rephrase that…I mean not getting what I NEED. If I knew where I was headed in life, I should’ve started getting myself together a long time ago. You see it’s the process of “getting to where you got to go”. That kind of struggle. I have been through the worst over 4 years with a guy who simply isn’t a man but acts like a hormonal teenage boy. But hold on…I’m getting way ahead of myself on that part.

At the age of 16 I was ready to surround myself with love. I wanted to be in a relationship so bad and I mean bad. But I did have at least someone who I still consider my one and only male best friend. At that time, I got cold feet and told him that I wasn’t ready, and I had a lot going on. Which I did. However, there were other shadows clouding my judgement. Over the summer of 2020, I fell for someone else, and the rest is the past. Let’s just say I learned my lesson with that guy who I was speaking about earlier.

Let’s call him Brian. You see Brian is a manipulator who only cares about himself. He only wants what he wants and when he wants it. You know when you are young and in love, and you just want to be with the person who gives you all those cute little butterflies every time he or she walks in a room. Yeah, I thought that way about Brian. Even after he showed me who he really was, I still ignored the signs. But I regretted it later. He would never tell me why we never took whatever that was we had to the next level. Instead, he would make excuses repeatedly.

After all of that, I went into a depression state. What’s funny about this is my mom referring me to the exorcist movie. For months, I felt drained and broken by some guy that didn’t need that much energy. But overtime, I kept seeing him until the visits and the texting stopped. A time when I had enough of it all. Did it feel good? Yes, but a part of me still didn’t want to let go. Eventually, I forced myself to let go and I remained on the right track ever since.

After him, I became aware of people’s intentions beginning to not want to be around people. That experience just made me feel like I wasn’t myself. And I did lose myself when I was seeing him. Then I realized that it was a sign of me becoming an adult. I begin to go through hormonal changes and physical as well. During these changes, I felt like I was morphing into another body. More importantly, my adult body. Surprisingly, 2024 came around and I wanted a change. Thanks to my mom I went to check on my health. My status is fair but lately I have been working out and losing weight. Something I always wanted.

Now, I struggle to find comfortable jobs from home. Due to the lack of resources to go out and get a job, I spend most of my time doing job searches and doing what I normally do. I started online college last year and it’s been pretty good. The issue is that I can’t find what I’m good at. Seeing my peers go out and accomplish things really stings because I’ve always wanted to be in their shoes. Be on my own and develop a good stable life for me and my family. There are days where I want to give up and be back in that black hole. Sometimes being depressed distracted me from the reality of things.

And no, I’m not okay. I have breakdowns and sad days, but I know what I must do to keep me and my family going. I just hope I can better my life and theirs. To be honest, I want to win, and I pray that I do it…