This is Normal

I have found the paradigm shift I needed to finally feel at ease.

This is normal.

Obviously, from a global perspective, these times aren't normal, but what makes this normal is that all of us are going through the same pandemic experience right now.

This perception that I'm not doing enough work, that I have no friends, that I'm falling behind — this isn't unique. I don't know how I didn't realize it before, but everyone feels this way at some point in their life. Being unemployed for a time while I figure things out in my early twenties is normal. Feeling like I don't have enough friends when I've spent two years here is normal (and for the record, I do have friends! More than I thought I do!). Comparing myself to people two, three, four years older than me and not being in the same place as them in life is normal!

My motto growing up was, "Everything will be okay." I had to believe that I would survive my childhood and eventually be able to take care of myself. It served me well and kept me going until I got to a point where I graduated college, established myself in Sacramento, and, indeed, everything was okay. At that point, I began to grow exceedingly anxious. If everything was going to be okay, then why did I not feel okay? The answer seemed so obvious once I realized it. Everything was okay, but my motto was still that everything will be — at an indeterminate time in the future — okay, which clearly jarred with my reality at the time.

Presently, the world has been turned upside-down and things are not okay again. But excitingly, things do not need to be okay to be normal. It sounds bleak, but truly, the only way to not lose one's mind is to accept that life, in whatever condition it may be, is normal. The alternative is to wonder if perhaps the experience of not-normal is solely a personal phenomenon, in which case one would be insane, or driven insane by wondering. Quite honestly, things have not been okay for a very long time. Yet, accepting that this is normal is the first step to figuring out what to fix so that normal is better. Believing the present is not normal externalizes the circumstances. Accepting the present as normal is accepting one's own experiences to exist within it and have agency in it. ◊

Twenty-three and Me

Without a doubt, 2020 has been a most disappointing year so far, the furthest from living up to my expectations for it. What should have been an experience of reaching new heights in my career, social life, and personal health has instead become one of unemployment (I exaggerate, I'm freelancing now), isolation, and misery. This time last year, I was in a hotel suite after a most perfect day at Disneyland. Today, I am alone at home, desperately wishing to be close to those who love me.

I arrive in my mid-twenties in the midst of a pandemic, the world locked down in quarantine (or it should be if everyone follows the rules). Clearly, everything is different now. The goals I had set for myself require adjustment. The unsustainable habits and beliefs I have grown into must be re-examined. Again and again and again I muse about my identity. I am forced to assume that this is the meaning of life, to build and improve and rebuild one's identity endlessly.

All things considered, I'm not doing so badly. I am in no danger of losing my apartment, I am finding work in graphic and web design, and I talk to my friends fairly regularly. Yet why do I still feel like I am scrambling to cling to a foundation of security that is inches away from dissolving into the void? What paradigm shift must I undertake to finally feel at ease?

My anxieties at conflict with each other are the fear of meeting new people and the fear of being alone. When my life structure aligned with other people's structures in high school and college, this was not as much of an issue. I was at once easily immersed in relationships where commonalities were high and the barriers of entry were not. It was easy to meet new people and it was easy to not be alone. Now, as an adult, and especially in quarantine, it is beyond difficult to meet new people and all too easy to be alone. Physical isolation is less of an issue as the psychological torment of wondering if anyone cares about me — would anyone notice at all if I died? I hadn't realized this would be as much of an issue for me as it is, but I'm really starting to question — am I as truly as comfortable with myself as I thought I was?

Whether I want to or not, the time has come to make peace with myself and the decisions that brought me here. It is difficult, to be weaned off the closeness of childhood, still desperate to latch on to the warmth of other people. I thought I had flown the nest when I moved out on my own; while I may have physically done so, emotionally and mentally I still have a ways to go. I suppose this is all part of growing up: having so much distance and building the maturity it takes to accept it. I don't know how much longer this lockdown will last, but while it lasts, I might as well accept that loneliness is an inevitable part of life. Even when I was in D.C., I was still around other people more than I realized. I can't be certain that this will be the only time in my life that I am on my own, so if I want to survive it, I'm going to have to figure out how. ◊