"I'm sick of motherfuckers tryna tell me how to live" - Megan the Stallion
Last year right before my 25th birthday a lot of unfortunate shit happened from being newly single to being diagnosed with PCOS & Crohn’s disease. Mind you around this time last year I’m three years into have an autoimmune/inflammatory bowel disease, and my doctor informed me that around year eight which will be my early 30’s I have to get screened for cancer, since my condition puts me at high at risk. Along with everything else I had going on I decided to quit my full time job in the mental health field and work at my part time job which promoted me to a supervisor and go to NCAT.
Within the first few weeks of turning 25 I started to grasp the seriousness of my health issues and I decided I wasn’t going to stress about having goals this year because life is short. For all I know I may get into my 30’s and have to do fucking chemo or I may get married and never be able to have kids (PCOS creates infertility). Also I thought this breakup was temporary but once I realized it may be permanent I decided to be a hot girl. Basically I said fuck the life I had planned for 25 and started going out more and stressing less.
From August to early November life was amazing. I connected with an old friend who I flew out to see and he’s been nothing but great to me. He understands I’m not trying to be serious and he’s been a great friend to me as I'm healing from the breakup. I went to Cabo, Mexico and it was lit as fuck. Life was good until I realized I didn’t want to be in school anymore for mental health and my car broke down. After working in the mental health field for 4 years and finally stepping away from this career I noticed I didn't miss the chaos that came with that career and I knew staying in school to be a therapist was pointless. Now I have to think about what’s the next plan. Being a therapist was my ideal career since I started college. Then my car repairs cost over a stack but I utilized my income and a payment plan service the dealership offered to get my baby fixed.
From December to the end of February I was struggling financially. I had used my school refund to survive which is why I felt comfortable quitting my full time job. I didn’t consider how I was going to pay my bills if I decided to quit school. Of course financial woes were bound to happen when I didn’t get another refund check on top of taking care of my car issues. Thankfully my momma helped me get my shit together & honestly nobody but her knew about my situation. One thing about my momma she loves me unconditionally and she understood that life happens. One key to surviving your 20's is asking for helping and accepting the help. A huge issue I have and still working on is asking for help. I'm blessed with an amazing support team which is something a lot of people don't have but I never want to ask them for shit. Don't be like me if you need something and you know somebody can help you, take the help. I don't care how shit may look towards other people if you don't have to struggle or suffer alone don't do it, take the help it'll be one less than to stress about. Without her help I deadass didn’t know what the fuck I was going to do. My whole life I’ve been a planner and for the first time ever I said fuck all of those plans and I was winging it (I don't recommend doing this). Making a decision to follow your dreams is hard especially if you don't have a financial plan in place, but I also don't believe in staying in anything that doesn't bring you happiness. In my opinion having the funds and having bills is the reason most people can't or decide not to follow their dreams.
Between working as much as I could and being stressed I figured out my new career path and I got accepted into an online school for industrial organizational psychology in January. Although the program had a drop in enrollment I was working and stressed from work that I didn’t start school until about 6 months after I got my acceptance letter. From March to June I was on a tight budget, but I was making enough money to pay my bills but I wasn’t happy at work anymore and I started feeling like having fun was cool but what the hell was I really doing with my life. I’m 25 with a bachelor’s degree and I’m working at a restaurant.
Between watching a podcast Pour Minds, reading “Who Moved My Cheese” by Dr. Spencer, and talking with my momma and one of my besties (I love you so much Tee) I realized I had to do something different if I wanted something different. I wanted a job where I can make money but not be stressed as well as have time to focus on school and work on my goals such as writing my books and building a mobile bartending business.
Thanks to two of my co-workers I got hired at another restaurant at the beginning of June. This new work environment was less stressful, the money was better, and I didn’t have to work twice as hard. I finally had everything in place to start school at the end of June. Life was slowly but surely getting better although my damn apt. place sent me a bill in June for an extra $450. To make a long story short, somehow there was a slight balance remaining in January and every month it wasn’t paid in full they charged us a $50 late fee. Mind you me and my bestie wasn’t notified of this balance until months later but thankfully I was making the bread from working both restaurant jobs and I got that squared away. I felt hopeful for the first time in months and I had started vlogging the things I was going to get done before my 26th birthday. I had planned to get a Gucci bag, finish my first semester of school, and complete the awaiting sequel to book one. Honestly, working both jobs and getting shit done was cool until I had an anxiety attack on July 5th while I was at the first job.
I haven’t had an anxiety attack in 2 and ½ years which scared me and this was a sign that I could no longer work and allow the bullshit of the first job to stress me out so I quit. Now I have more time and instead of having the motivation to focus on other things I fell into a depressive state for a few weeks. Change is hard for me and having so much free time allowed me to overthink and ultimately nothing but laying in the bed and going to work was all I did from July 6th up until recently.
My birthday is coming up and none of my goals will be met but it’s okay. I never thought I'd mentally get to a point that I could accept shit for what it was without being upset. I stressed and tried to get too much shit done at the last minute and pretty much nothing got done. My birthday creates so much anxiety for me. You know how most people feel like it’s time to create goals and be great for the new year, that’s how I always feel when my birthday is coming up. Any who, I felt like it was too late to catch up on school work but I talked to my professors and they’re allowing me to submit my work as I get it completed which, is nothing but God looking out for me. I’m going to Miami with two of my best friends, I paid a deposit on a bartending class, and the first 10k words of book two is done.
I’m far from perfect and without God and my momma’s love and grace I don’t know how I would’ve made it this last year. Society and social media has a way of making my generation feel like we’re behind or we should be doing this or working on that when in reality you should do everything in your own time and most importantly everything happens on God’s timing.
I’m not where I want to be in life but I’m not where I used to be either. From 22 to now surviving these 20’s has been so hard and all I've done is be stressed TF out. On everything I love 25 was the beginning of saying fuck it and becoming okay with shit not going as planned. For chapter 26 I have some goals, but ultimately the main goal is to travel and be happy.
I've experienced what it's like to be broke.
I've experienced being in grind and hustle mode.
I've experienced being a hot girl and having fun.
I've experienced making some poor decisions and working harder to bounce back from it.
I've experienced love.
But I haven't truly experienced being happy without being stressed and I don't want that for my life anymore.
Life is short and I love this post I read a few weeks ago that stated "You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore to be happy."
I often pray I make it to 30, which is when I heard life gets better. I don’t know what God’s plans are for my life but I’m going to keep going, keep readjusting, and keep praying until I have the life that I never need a vacation from.
Thank you for riding with me as I keep you updated on life in my 20’s and I hope somebody reads my posts and knows your not alone in this journey called life.
Much Love, xoxo
“What’s to come is better than what is gone”
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