JUST LIKE JULIA

As I navigate these murky waters of my emotions, I find myself signing up for online therapy. A part of me has felt too proud to ask for help for a long time, as if I need to champion this life on my own. Maybe it’s influenced from my background: where strength of character has been measured by the amount of weight you can carry on your back, Paul Bunyan style. I’m a little more modern and Westernized for this notion, so I find the pride subsiding as I reach out a hand.

I feel that this new chapter of my life story will require me to be in a laser focused state. I can sense that everything is falling together and I want to make sure that I rise up to meet its abundance and challenges with grace and ease. Maybe it’s because I’m aware of my own ambition: that there are many dreams I want to actualize. And also that I am aware of my own shortcomings: that I tend to have ten things cooking on the stove at once. I will need help maintaining order in this chaotically creative kitchen of my life.

Sometimes I think: I can just go to the people in my life with this. But then I freeze: Who do I call? Where do I start? I know everyone is dealing with their own lives and the things in them. And for a long time, I felt like I somehow assigned myself the task of helping everyone else. But then who helps me? When you’ve created this image in your mind that you’re the strong one, who can you be vulnerable to?

I’ve been thinking about getting married, starting a business, having children…I know they won’t happen overnight and maybe not at all. But I also think that if that is the path that I choose, I want to make sure I give it my best. For a long time, I felt maybe I could meditate it away. But maybe you can only do so much with that. Maybe you need a few more ingredients. Maybe the recipe is different for everybody.

Somehow, you meet people in your life that inspire you to change. That you want to be a better person for. So that you, too, can be happy. Because for a long time, I remember on hard days, especially after fights with my parents, I would go to sleep crying, just wishing and praying that everyone would finally be happy. And for some reason, it felt like I had to give up my own happiness in order for them to get theirs. I’m starting to realize that it’s not true. It’s interconnected and interrelated.

As above, so below.

I need to be happy also. I am worthy. I am deserving. I am loved.