W27 – SPRING 2022
Not feeling it... It’s okay that you don’t have it all together babe, you never did anyways! by Jaya Lockhart (FBM, ‘25) There’s moments where we feel like we peak — where we feel like we are at the high point in the current season of our lives — the mountain top. Whether our mountain top is us thriving at work and feeling like we finally mastered the art of self discipline, the art of self love no longer is foreign to us. We’ve really gotten to a space mentally where we finally feel like we can just stride, coasting in bliss. Ahhhhh. How beautiful is that moment? So beautiful that we try to hold on to it for dear life.
In our childhood, we spent time daydreaming about how we would be doctors, lawyers, chefs, parents, wives, husbands and damn near anything our heart wanted all by at least the age of 20. Ain’t it funny how big our imaginations were back then? We had no sense of time or work ethic yet but we still saw ourselves standing on the highest pedestal of life. We didn’t know that over time, our visions would change and what was once a world with the sun colored at the top corner of the page, would now be a world painted by politics, racism, equality issues The very second we start feeling our feet and so on. What was bright in our childslip, we begin to feel imbalanced. Anxiety hood now feels dull in our adulthood. creeps in and the frantic search to find what, where and howTF we are no longer Apologies if I’m being too blunt but coastin’ on automatic bliss! The new focus please read this as if I’m speaking to you is how to catch yourself before you fall [or as my close friend: LIFE CAN FEEL INslip] and keeping your peace starts feeling SANE, DARLING! In fact, life can feel like you’re holding a fistful of water. like you are covered in a 80lb weighted blanket and all you can do is just snuggle Just at the right time — the split second deeper and deeper into your introverted moment in your spiraling, you realize cocoon. But let me offer you a beautiful that it’s okay that you don’t have control rebuttal, it’s only in the chaos you see right now and you never truly did… everything in the picture. Yes, finding yourself, spending time searching for You never had it together and what you what brings you joy, teaching yourself to thought made sense, actually never to- sit still and say thank you to the very fact taled up to be exactly what you needed. that you are alive, breathing and well, can Was it all in your head? Well, at least it feel like you’re playing a game of “Where’s felt like you were all in your head; but Waldo?” But you gotta admit, would you the truth is you’re not crazy and you’re be as strong as you are now if life didn’t not overreacting either. Life happens feel insane? Would you have the courage faster than we can say “life happens” and to love, if you hadn’t been hurt? Would sometimes it feels like life is passing at you have known how to get up, if you the speed of lightning. We look at those hadn’t been pushed down? Would you around us and begin feeling like we are have thought, if you hadn’t been quesfalling short, like we’re not doing enough tioned? … almost as if we are completely “behind schedule” from where we thought we Everything you have ever gone through would be at this age. has aided in you being here, in this mo-
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illustration by Vicki Liu
ment, where you are now. It’s why you appreciate the bliss in the good moments. It has fueled your reasoning to believe in God, your faith. When you grow through things there’s no denying that it hurts or that it’s crazy and unfair but neither is there denying your inner child of the very dreams you have, whether you’ve tried to bury them or not. We don’t have a say in how things turn out in our lives, but we do have a say in how we respond and proceed. What we do today makes up the foundation of our tomorrow — yes, we are able to start over and start fresh but that only happens when we make a choice. We can’t control how things pan out in the end but we sure do play a huge role in the process of it. We don’t have it all together. We don’t even know if tomorrow is promised. We do know that we are here right now and that’s all that is really needed. Right now.
