What a Year

As we all know, at the beginning of 2022 I had packed my bags and moved to Tennessee. I began this blog and really tried to leap out of my comfort zone. Well I am happy to say I was able to do so….until I stopped trusting myself.

I won’t get into the bigger details of this, however, I will say I had heard some extremely disappointing news. This news I had been waiting on for three and a half years and it was an incredible let down. After that I completely lost my drive, my passion and my sense of direction. I lost me. With this, I stopped being spontaneous, I stopped doing things that I loved, things that motivated me. I got into a relationship that was not the best for my mental health, but hey, at least I had someone. At least there was someone there who listened, who wasn’t in Rhode Island, who could be someone I leaned on during a very depressing time in my life. Was it right? Absolutely not. Did we stay together? Absolutely not. We were both toxic for each other. He was a distraction that brought me down in ways I hadn’t realized and I was a place holder so he wouldn’t be too lonely while he waited to meet the one.

My loved ones back home asked me how I was doing and if I was ok. I smiled, nodded my head and said “I’m ok, I’m just glad it’s over”. I was not ok. I was angry and growing depressed, but I was also strong and knew I eventually would become ok. I knew my family was worried, I knew people knew I wasn’t fine, however, they also knew I was capable and strong enough to get past it and I did. Eventually I got a new job, left the boy and made some incredible friends. I was finally beginning to see myself again.

Months past and Christmas 2022 is here. My mom, step dad and my amazing grandmother came for a visit so I wouldn’t be alone for my first Christmas away from home. On the last day of their visit, my car was stalling and it had to get towed. 5 tows, 2 mechanics and a month later, I had completely run out of time, patience and money, my car was deemed “unfixable”, and I had made the very difficult decision to move back home. I did everything in my power to stay but yet again, I grew angry and depressed.

My mom and stepdad flew down, helped pack up my apartment and drove across the country with me and my two cats. They were in a Uhaul and I was in a rental. I was upset during the trip but I could manage. It’s just life right? Things don’t work out but we have to keep going. So I did, until we crossed the Rhode Island state line. I saw the “Discover Beautiful Rhode Island” sign and out of nowhere I began to completely ball my eyes out. Had I made a mistake? Was this really the best decision? Is it too late to go back? I let out the loudest scream I could, dramatic I know, but it helped.

I sat for almost three weeks just feeling sorry for myself, wishing I could go back just one year prior. I was the happiest I had ever been. But when I came home I had no goals, no drive, no ambitions. I was just sitting in my self pity feeling sorry for myself. My car was looked at by my mechanic up here and he had fixed it in less than a week. Pity turned to rage. I had spoken to family about it but it didn’t help much, until I spoke to my cousin. She said “…now you’re here and you have a new opportunity…”. This didn’t sink in at first. The conversation was a lot of me being bitter and her giving me a list of things I could do, goals I could work towards. After a day or so I grazed over the conversation to look at some of the ideas she had and the words “new opportunity” caught my eye. A clean slate, back at ground zero. A spark of excitement lit up in me for just a second. I thought about it more and here I am, a month after moving back home, after having the most incredible, exciting and hardest years of my life, picking up what I loved the most from last year, my blog.

I’m looking into moving away again come next year and I plan on beginning new adventures, but I’ll explain more later. I’m disappointed in how I handled the last year of my life, but I’m not sorry it happened. Don’t get me wrong, most of the year I truly was happy, I met incredible people, learned a lot about not only life, but myself and grew in so many ways. I think in some ways I needed this “reset” to fully find myself again. I needed to see my family, my cousins, my dad, my siblings, my incredible grandmother (I was getting homesick haha). I needed to regroup, refocus and restart. I will forever be grateful to the people, places and experience of Tennessee and I plan on going back. I just need to work on a few things up here first.