I’m alive.
I didn’t just vanish into thin air and completely forget about Unfiltered. There was just a lack of motivation on my end to write anything relevant. Things were also getting a bit crazy inside of my head and life kinda just caught up to me.
So let me catch you up…
I didn’t think it was even possible to go through what I’d gone through internally last month, but I continue to surprise myself every day. I think I’d reached a point where I questioned everything I was doing, every little decision I made, and if I was doing the right things.
I started school again in January as a part-time student in Business Administration. After a very tough midterms week, I’m questioning why I’m once again on the post-secondary education path. And honestly, I don’t fully know why I’m back in school; especially coming off a full week of beating myself up over it (and I mean tears and all). If you recall in my first blog post (which was ironically for a college assignment), I mentioned that a bachelor’s degree was a stay tuned kinda thing.
Well, I’m here and it kinda sucks.
The job market is absolute ass right now so really I’m in school to beef up my qualifications (because somehow I’ve been made to feel like everything I have under my belt right now doesn’t make me qualified to do anything). It’s been so frustrating as a 20-something trying to figure out this whole life/adult thing and attempt to get it right. Growing up, I looked at all the older people around me who made it genuinely look so fucking easy but really, they’re just good at hiding their struggle with it.
I can’t sit here and write this and tell you life after college “graduation” (if you want to call receiving your credential in the mail a graduation), hasn’t been mentally damaging because I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever felt so lost in my life.
If I’m being real here (and that’s completely why this blog exists), I didn’t choose the traditional university route after high school. I didn’t have my post-secondary life completely figured out until a week before classes were supposed to start. But because I didn’t go the traditional way, I feel like I’m paying the price for it in a way. It’s even worse living in a household with two siblings who did, because now I feel like I carry around this weird burden. Or there’s some weight of judgement between my choices and theirs.
And finding your place in the working world, I’ve quite literally thought about it like this: I’m missing out because the person next to me had their life figured out long before I did.
Whenever my thoughts travel to a space that’s completely meant to fuck me up, I tell myself that I’m exactly where I need to be right now, and that I’m doing exactly what I need to do right now to get to where I want to be. Every opportunity I’ve missed out on simply wasn’t meant for me and that bigger, better, and greater opportunities are currently finding their way to me. Have I lost belief in my own words along the way? Yes, without a doubt.
And rejection, swear to god, is harder than anybody knows. Not only that, but I fear that everything I’ve accomplished up until this point (this exact moment of writing this) is as good as it’s going to get for me and I’ll just be attempting to do better…not living it.
It ultimately got so bad to the point where I had to take a mini hiatus from Instagram and Snapchat for two weeks to save my sanity. I was tired of seeing people live the life I wish I was living and loathing myself for not getting there fast enough. And I’m genuinely so happy for every single person in my life who can say they’re living their best lives right now, or they’re in the element or dream jobs, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling sad for myself. Although, I’ve found it extremely difficult to balance the two as of late.
I think the main thing I can say about what’s been going on in recent weeks is that I’ve been honest with myself. I’ve been honest with my feelings and emotions. I’ve been honest with how I look at certain things or understand them. I’ve been honest with this difficult journey of figuring out who I am. I’ve been honest with what I want and when I want it.
Little by little everyday I try to be a little more positive, be a little kinder, and think a little louder.
I’ve started new projects over at my portfolio website Creativity Unleashed that I launched in January. It’s been refreshing to get in touch with my creative side again, in order to get away from everything else. Motivation has been difficult in recent weeks, but it’s quite easy to get lost in something you’re passionate about once you’ve started it. And I’m really excited about some of the content I have planned for my current project.
Earlier last month I was inspired to write again, which resulted in me recording and posting an eight minute spoken word poem on trauma.
This poem was incredibly tough to write, interesting to record, and definitely scary and uncomfortable to post to so many people at once. But it was something I felt I needed to do; words I felt I needed to say. And I don’t regret posting it; it’s probably some of my best work, coming from someone who has published three poetry books now.
It was kinda fun getting to sit on my bedroom floor and record something so honest and so raw. I look forward to producing other things on my bedroom floor with my mic.
Besides the crippling feeling of rejection, a month-long existential crisis and seasonal depression, there isn’t much going on in my life that you could be missing out on. I continuously find new calms during the storm, so don’t be surprised if I come out with another book, or poem, or make another website between this post and the next, whenever it may be.
But until next post…
ED out x.
Listen to: Hero // Family of the Year
Ellie Doe-Demosse 