This whole being a twenty-something young adult (I guess?) is hard. I love, love, love all the freedoms that come with it, but I hate, hate, hate all the responsibility. I’m out of high school, but still in college. I don’t have my parents financial support anymore, yet I’m struggling to make it on my own.
I feel so lost. Every time I turn around, someone from my class, or younger, is getting married and having babies. Had I not been such a dumbass, I could have already gotten my two year degree and be working towards my nursing degree. Some days I wish that I could go back and change it all. Go back and go to school instead of getting drunk and skipping class. Not date a drug addict/alcoholic.
I would have realized that it wasn’t my fault my step sister tried to kill herself. She was drunk when she told me, “My little sister can have all my things if I kill myself tonight.” I had no way of knowing she really was going to try. There was nothing I could have done. I know this, deep down, yet I still feel guilty. She never took responsibility for that. Never apologized for having seizures as my then twelve year old sister held her as she over dosed.
None of this was my fault. I should have gotten out of bed and gone to school. I shouldn’t have let it get the best of me. But it did. I chickened out and gave in. It was so much easier to go get drunk and sleep the day away. It took away the guilt and pain.
None of the numerous things that were going on were anything that I could have changed, yet I felt hopeless and sad. I flunked out of four classes because of this. I get so pissed at myself for being so stupid, but most days, I’m glad. Had I not gone through this and not had to pay my school back $750, I wouldn’t have learned the lesson I did.
Because of that mistake, I know how badly I want to finish college. I know how much I want to finish and get on with my life; how I want to get my degree and start being an adult.
I’m also a hypocrite, because as much as I say I want to finish and be an adult it scares the ever living hell out of me. All I’ve ever wanted to do was get married and become a mom, but what happens when I finally reach that goal. I have a hard time walking into a crowded room of people I don’t know without having an anxiety attack. How in the world am I going to find a husband, much less take care of another person? A person so small and fragile that I they can’t tell me what they want, what they need.
I know that these are things that are in my future five or ten years from now, but these are the things that keep me awake at night. The things that I have to make myself stop thinking about so I’ll be able to breathe. So I can stop having panic attacks and function like a normal human being.
I’ve learned to deal with my attacks. Most of the time I can get them under control and no one knows about it. They don’t know that it feels like someone is squeezing my ribs relentlessly, as my heart feels like it’s going to pound out of my chest.
Next week I plan on enrolling in school full time and with that will come health insurance again. I’m hoping that I can go to the doctor and get the medicine I need. Someone to talk to that can tell me I’m not weird, that there is something they can do to help me.
Because whether or not I want to admit it, it isn’t normal to have so many anxiety attacks. It isn’t normal to replay all the gruesome things that could have happened when someone cuts you off and almost causes a wreck.
I have to stop myself numerous times a day because if I don’t, I think about all the things that could go wrong and I freak myself out.
Some days I wake up and am happy to be my age. Happy that I can stay out until 4 am and it be okay because, “Oh, she’s young. She’s just getting it out of her system.” Most days though, I wish I were a little kid. I wish that my parents still had to take me to school and I had to remember to ask for lunch money.
I’d much rather have to worry about boys having cooties and skinned knees than how I’m going to pay that bill and put gas in my car.
Then, I look at all the amazing adults I have in my life, my parents and grandparents, friends and co-workers, and tell myself that it’s hard yes, but it’s worth it. If I didn’t have to fight for it, it wouldn’t be worth it.
Sometimes, I don’t want to fight it though. I’m not suicidal at all, I want to make that very clear. I love my life and all the people in it, I just wish things were easier. I wish I didn’t have to fight through it all so hard.
Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end and God won’t give me anything I’m not strong enough to handle.
I tell myself that numerous times a day. Most days, I believe it. Others, I don’t. Then God has a funny sense of humor and throws something at me that makes me realize just how fortunate I am. I'm blessed enough to have a loving, yet crazy, family. Friends that would bend over backwards for me. A roof over my head. A car to get me to work.
This is all over the place, I know and it isn’t things I normally talk about, but I needed to get it off my chest and sometimes, it’s easier written than said. I can go back and edit things. Change the way I want to say something without fearing that I’ll be judged because it came out wrong.
I guess it just took me having to write all this to realize that I’m having a hard time finding out who I am. I don’t feel like a kid anymore, but I don’t feel like an adult either. So maybe I’m not finished with school and maybe I’m not on the path to get married just yet. Maybe it’s hard just to get out of bed most mornings and maybe I have a hard time dealing with things, but maybe, hopefully, surely, I can figure it all out along the way.
I guess in the mean time all I can do is put one foot in front of the other and know that I’m being the best Katie Scarlett I know how to be and that’s I can ask for. That’s all anyone can ask for.
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