They say hindsight is 20/20, and I sort of think that's a load of shit. Sure, sometimes, looking back on things makes things clearer, but sometimes, it just gives you more questions or muddies things needlessly. So, from now on, I'm going to start saying hindsight is 20/60. In the scheme of things, it's not horrible vision, but it sure as hell ain't perfect, and sometimes you've got to put on some glasses to see clearly.
I tell you all this to tell you that I'm out of the woods, but looking back on the last few months has had me doing a lot of thinking that is really muddying my thoughts. In my last post, I talked about emotions and handling them and how that was certainly part of the problem that caused a bit of a downtrend in my life between Oxford and New York. It was, but it was certainly more complex than that, too. As I find myself in a better place than I was this fall, I find looking back isn't easy because that time really sucked, but looking back is both making things clear and giving me doubts about what exactly went on in my brain at that time.
All of that aside, something I've been seeing as I look to the past is that I certainly deal with a bit of the impostor syndrome. I struggle with feeling a bit like a fraud. I've worked hard, but I've also been given a lot of opportunities I don't always feel deserving of. My brain will make up these thoughts, things like, "Am I capable? Do I deserve any of the goodness I've got? Do people see me for what I really am?" To a certain degree, I think we all deal with internal questions like these, but it's a lot easier to pinpoint them in times of struggle. It's sort of like a weird version of asking the question, "Why me?" Not "why are bad things happening to me," but rather, "Why do all of these good things happen to me?"
In the fall, I was asking myself this a lot. Why was I lucky enough to have had opportunities abroad, to have gotten into my master's program, to have friends and family that cared about me. My brain was shouting, "you're not worthy of all of that." While I have been afforded a lot of opportunities that aren't afforded to everyone, or even to many people, I think I've realized that there's a balance to be struck as I think about it.
Part of the problem in my mind (cue Ale Mariotti clapping at this sentence) is I think grappling with my own privilege. Acknowledging my privilege and trying to use it to the benefit of less privileged communities is a duty, a requirement of privilege in my mind. Privilege doesn't mean I don't deserve good things, happiness, or opportunity; rather, I think it means I need to be aware that I have good things, happiness, and opportunity that isn't afforded to some people. I should be grateful for those things, but also acknowledge that there is work to be done. In the fall, I wasn't seeing the work to be done or my capability as a person of privilege. Instead, I thought, "Why in the holy hell do I have all of these things? Me, this flawed, often really troubled human being! I don't deserve it, and I should feel like shit about it."
It took being out of a darker place to think to myself that maybe feeling like shit about it isn't productive for anyone. That's probably not how things get done, and it's probably not going to benefit less privileged folks for me to turtle-shell up and feel self-loathing. I am capable, and I am a hard worker, and while my life may ultimately be the result of my privilege, there is more to it than that, and I can't discount that. So, in that case, I guess hindsight's vision wasn't all that bad. In a better place, I feel that I have the tools and means to help, to do good things for people who need it, and I'm trying to.
Where the hindsight gets muddy is when I try to figure out what got me into the bad headspace in the first place. I know that depression in my life is real, and the chemical imbalances of the body might be a part of it. The changing of the seasons might be a part of it. Those aren't the things I think of when I think of that time though. It's still fresh in my mind; I would say I started feeling better in late November. Perhaps not so coincidentally, that was when I got a job. That was also when I traveled abroad to England and Rome. So, what does that say about me? I started thinking to myself, is my happiness dependent on my function? Is that a problem? Do I have to be on the move with travel to be happy? I started questioning what I need and what it takes for me to be happy, and I don't really have any concrete answers.
In my adult life, I've felt like I know myself pretty well. This past fall was a shock to that system, a shock to a perhaps naive and arrogant belief that I had myself figured out. I felt I had a grasp on what brought me down and what brought me back up. The darkness of the fall came without warning, and it pretty much lifted without warning. My life was in limbo in a lot of ways, and there was a lot of transition going on, and I think I'm trying to find more of an explanation for those feelings of emptiness that there might actually be. We all go through tough times, and maybe I don't need an explanation. Maybe it was just one of those times in my life that was a downturn that happens to all of us.
Somehow, that hasn't been good enough for me. In my better spirits, I've been searching for answers as to why the spirits were worse off in the first place. I think I'll probably just have to accept that it was a perfect storm of sorts. There isn't one reason. It wasn't one fix. Things went sour together, and things got better together, and maybe that's life sometimes.
Writing helps me work through those thoughts sometimes. I don't know if I'd have been able to articulate that last paragraph when I opened this page and started writing, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, I guess. As always, thanks for reading. I'm happy and healthy, and I'm enjoying New York and all of the prospects that the new year has to offer. Thanks for putting up with me, y'all!
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