It’s been exactly two months since my last entry, and though I’m not sure my absence has been noticed (not that I started this project to be noticed in the first place), I must admit that I barely thought of this blog in the past two months myself.
As I start this entry, I don’t know what shape it’ll take, how long it’ll be, or if it will provoke any sort of response. I’m not sure I want it to, either, because I’m not making excuses or looking for sympathy. I’m simply writing to write. And I haven’t done that in a while.
I’ve been toying with entry ideas all week, but whenever I thought of one, I thought of a reason I “wasn’t ready to share that yet.” I probably didn’t want to share that idea to begin with and felt like I had to, and I’ve been slowly working to get out of the “I should” mindset and move into the “I want” mindset. There is one idea that I keep coming back to in general, and I think I’m okay sharing that here (if anyone even reads this, but again that’s never been my main goal).
I’ve been feeling lost. Not in the “finding myself during the pandemic” way, or “trying a different hobby during lockdown” way, or even in “trying the latest workout fad” way, but in the way of looking for lifestyle changes to make myself feel better. That may sound similar to the “finding myself” conundrum, but the difference is subtle. Here are a few examples.
There are days where, at the end of the workday, I feel like I don’t have more energy than what it takes to walk away from my home office and to my bedroom, where I lay down and watch TikToks for an hour, sometimes more. As I keep scrolling, it’s in the forefront of my mind that there’s something I should be doing, some way I should be being productive instead of laying down and scrolling. But I just… can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t put in the effort it takes to get up and find the “something” that I’m neglecting. That ongoing internal conflict is in my head every day, and when I notice that I’ve enjoyed having quiet afternoons because I’ve actively stepped back from side hustles, I wonder if I’m spending too much time doing nothing. Because I don’t know how to just exist. Unless I have something to do, I’m lost, and yet I’m often so exhausted getting out of bed in the morning that the first few hours of the day, I’m on autopilot.
While racking up the hours spent on TikTok, I saw multiple creators talk about moldavite. I know better than to think that’s fate and not the TikTok algorithm, but I still went and read more about it. I went as far as making a mental note to look into buying a necklace the next day because “it couldn’t hurt.” If a crystal could show me the path forward, or show me that I should stay on this path a little longer and be patient, I would fork over however many dollars it took. How did I get to the point where I thought a crystal would help me? I don’t know. While I respect people who respect crystals, I’m not educated enough in the subject to participate, and I know myself enough to know that this is not the right time to start learning. I’m lost, so I almost grabbed the green crystal life raft.
I’m not sure where this next one came from, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was TikTok, too, but I also found myself looking into CBD oil. As I’ve acknowledged my anxiety and its triggers, I’ve looked for ways to manage it and cope with it, and while I’m hesitant to research medication because I’m afraid of the side effects, I thought CBD would be a good halfway house. So I looked up the nearest shop, looked at their products, and thought nothing of dropping at least $60 for a vial of oil that could potentially, maybe, hopefully, take the edge off every once in a while. I never made it to the shop, because I realized it was another avenue I was looking at to make myself feel better. Buying (expensive) oils wasn’t who I am (or who I think I am), but I’m lost enough to wish it would be. I’m lost enough to put my hope in an oil that sits under your tongue and takes your worries away.
Even without the pandemic giving the world a write-off for 2020 and beyond, I know I’m not alone in my feelings. It’s not comforting necessarily to think that there have been others before and there will be others after me who feel just as lost at my age, mainly because if there are so many of us who feel lost during our twenties, it will eventually stop being so, yet here we are. It’s kind of encouraging, however, to come across articles like this, which essentially say that the late twenties are a pain for everyone. “Pain” is an adjective that was carefully chosen: my lower back has been in pain for so long, I can’t remember when it started, and I had an endoscopy yesterday as part of the process for finding out why my stomach bloats without warning and why it’s so painful to eat certain foods I’ve been eating all my life. My insides are as lost as my head, it seems.
Crystals, oils, mindless scrolling, and swearing off pork (after watching the Italian butcher shop episode of Chef’s Table). Will any one of these help me feel less lost? Is realizing that I’m looking for an easy, passive solution the answer itself? Even if I never followed through with any of them, maybe they achieved their purpose in being instruments to help show me “the way,” even if “the way” isn’t any of them. My thoughts are as convoluted as my sentences, but maybe if I acknowledge I’m lost I’ll be on my way sooner.
From Doodle to Bestseller 