Two years

Change is happening all around us, all of the time. It is happening to ourselves every single day, even if we are not purposefully forging forward with it. 

I have experienced more change in myself over these past two years than I have in the majority of my life. I'm twenty-four now, moving towards twenty-five and the last time I felt that I had to make as many life-changing decisions as I have, I was sixteen. During that time I was stripped back to my bare bones and had to build my life up from scratch. This is something I've not necessarily had to do again over these past two years, but I have definitely uncovered parts of me that I didn't know I still had issues with. 

it's taken everything I have had to make it through some of the horrific dark times during this period, but I've also been graced with so much growth. I've made mistakes, as does any human-being, but I feel that I have now been equipped with a strong sense of what I want and don't want and am getting to a point where I can see the light through the trees. Looking back, I felt that I knew myself and the state of play in the world, but now I know this was never the case at all. It took me taking a step back and spending many day alone by myself to understand the change that was right in front of my face. Naivety is always present. 

I've played with guilt a lot over these past few years too, wondering whether I'm making the right decision for myself and others. We all know that guilt comes from a subconscious effort to do the right thing and to treat those whom we love around us, with respect and honesty. If we feel that we haven't fulfilled that or done something that may have hurt others, this feeling will present itself. It's important to note however that the feeling of guilt may not mean that we have always done something wrong as the traditional understanding would suggest, but it can be us putting ourselves first which might be at the unfortunate detriment to some close to us. It's important to keep looking at ourselves and being truthful that if we have done wrong and haven't treated someone as well as we could, we try to fix it. But the notion of that must always be balanced with our external environment. Not every guilty feeling means we are inherently wrong, but we must always be able to accept where we have done wrong. I know I haven't always been right in the past and this is where we learn going forward, because we cannot go back.

If you are making the decision for yourself and not intentionally hurting others, then you have nothing to be ashamed of. Of course, it is about a fine balance but the core element remains that you cannot stop living your life because of other people's opinions or else you would be stuck in the same place forever. We all hate harming the people we are close to, but we cannot maintain the same from fear of the outside perception if we have been clear with those around us to the extent that is necessary.

Guilt is a funny thing. It's something that makes out heart sink and race and it may show us another side to ourselves, but it must be something that must always be meticulously reviewed and understood, balanced with harm and risk. The difficult times that come with it, often present ourselves with the most growth and at the time, we may feel that the struggle will never end but it always does in one way or another. Don't substitute. 

Loneliness

Loneliness is something that we tend to associate with the elderly, but we all feel it. Physically, loneliness can happen at any age. We might find ourselves not making any friends at university, having just moved to a new town or too sick to go outside. More recently we might connect with this feeling during the midst of the covid pandemic.

The deep sinking feeling of loneliness can occur at any time. We might feel our heart fall out when we're in a crowd full of people, even if those people are our best friends and family and yet feeling like there is no one there at all. This is common to be familiar with and happens to all of us at some point in our lives. It's worth noting that although we may feel lonely, we are in fact very loved. Feelings are just that, feelings.


Physically, it's important to remember that being on your own isn't isolated to the age that you are, nor is it always something to be frowned upon. You can be lonely not matter where or whom you are. I'm twenty-four and I have been severely lonely at many points in my life. I have felt the pain of being in a new town, hours away from home and not knowing anyone or anything, trying to find my way across a new country or having no one to talk to in a hotel room at two in the morning. Our circumstances is what leads us to be lonely, nothing more and nothing less.

There is a key amongst all of this however. We must take this time to understand ourselves, and not attach ourselves to the nearest thing or person that provides us with a little bit of company and solitude. Our decisions need to be as calculated and understood as if we were surrounded by a hundred people. The struggle that we face as humans, is that most of us are born to have an emotional connection with at least another person and when we don't have that, we strive and accept anything that may give us something similar. The issue we then face, when we are in this vulnerable state, is that we accept behaviours that can be toxic to ourselves and our lives. A good stead and fast rule is to look and see whether, if we were in a loving and fulfilled environment, would we still accept and spend time with the person. The answer to that question may still be yes, however our actions may differ if we were in ordinary circumstances. Reviewing your actions and taking a step outside yourself to look at it, is still as important as understanding how to cope with the loneliness that you are facing. Desperate actions can be just as detrimental to your self as sustained unwanted loneliness.