10/23/2024: Wasted Time and Tainted Memories

Yesterday was the first time I felt 100% like myself in a while. Maybe it’s because I got to do everything I set out to do for once. It’s been a lot harder to do that lately. 

I want to believe it’s just the hype that comes with the busy end of the year, but I still have a feeling that it could also be something else. I keep waking up feeling like I forgot something, and going to bed with that anxiety that keeps me up wondering what I forgot or what unforeseen future event I need to plan for. But at least for one day I forgot to remember those things, and it was needed.

I think I’m doing the right things, but I’ve been going through the motions to the point where I’ve stopped experiencing them in the same novel way as before. I’ve pondered on that concept before, how we become so used to the new so quickly and how disappointing that is that everything eventually becomes mundane. 

I don’t want the things I love, or the love I have for the people in my life, to ever feel ordinary. Every day I get to spend doing what I love with the people I love should never be taken for granted or wished away. It’s valuable time I could be cherishing instead of fixating on one thing that went wrong that feels like the end of the world. I’ve wasted my fair share of past days like that, and looking back now I can say that I regret it. All that time I spent upset over trivial things only got me wasted time and tainted memories. 

I believe that if I met my past self that I wouldn’t even like her. Though I may sympathize with her ignorance at her younger age, I would also pity her for not having a more open mind, for not realizing how much life she was missing by sulking or feeling beside herself because things didn’t go her way. And I am by no means perfect now, but I can say that life has become so much more precious to me now that I spend more time focusing on what truly matters, and who truly matters to me. 

I just need to find that spark that is threatening to go out each day, the thing that keeps me motivated and grateful to wake up and chase my dreams every day. It was so difficult to find once I started this journey a couple years ago, and sometimes I find that it’s even more difficult to hold onto it after that, to not let the world snuff it out and rip it out of my hands as it makes its demands at me to conform and give in. All I know is that regardless of if I end up successful, I will make sure I am fulfilled.