It’s been a couple months since I moved to Arizona on my own and while I am elated by the sense of a new place and new adventures, I have recently been feeling homesick. It gets lonely here sometimes. I have new friends and coworkers I have met to keep me company but it’s not the same as having a close-knit group of family and friends you have known for a long time that you can just go see. I miss them. Being separated from my family has given me a whole new perspective into how fortunately I am to have a network of love. I still try to maintain contact with people from back home but sometimes I just feel down.
Sometimes I feel lost in all of this and the stress of my job coupled with a lack of closeness to family ties really has me feeling down and lonely many nights. And it’s always the nights that are hardest. When the sun goes down and its cold out and you are left with only your thoughts, your mind starts to wander into some strange, sometimes dark places. Sometimes I wonder what I am doing out here. I feel lost. For all the adventures and growth I have been through, there is still a stinging and a longing in my heart for something else.
Not to mention I am going through a bit of a heartbreak with the woman I was seeing for the last year and a half. I feel like I lost my best friend and it feels like I am out here alone and isolated even though I know that is not true. In these situations, it’s so easy to fall into a victim mentality role and just cycle through thought patterns about how bad you have it and how lonely you are. I’ve certainly gone down that road in the past and it’s not a road I want to venture down again.
So, in spite of this nagging tension in my chest today from contemplating my job and the occasional spout of loneliness I feel, I have been trying to generate positivity and gratitude. I know that I am very fortunate to have this opportunity to live in new places and discover new things. I can look at this time, even the hard times, as a challenge to make myself more strong, courageous, and independent. I chose this life, so I can’t play the victim role here. I chose to drive over a thousand miles away from my home and work in an environment that I know has plenty of stressors.
I have to own up to my choices and to try to make the best of things going forward. I am still lost in a whirlwind of different emotions from heartache to loneliness to self-doubt and anxiety. Some days are tough. Some days feel like the whole world is against you but that’s life. I remind myself that despite my anxieties, fears, worries, and self-doubts that I still get up every morning and make something happen.
I just keep going. And that’s what it is about. It’s the small choices we make from moment to moment that add up over time. Somedays I feel like I have backtracked with my mental health, but overall, I have to remind myself that I have grown more in the past few months than previous years. I am learning and I am growing, it’s just subtle and it requires patience and time to fully grasp.
With major growth, there are no “ahh haaa” moments of revelation and transformation. Major growth is subtle and it happens day by day with every choice we make. These choices add up over time to transform our lives. Like today, I was feeling pretty down and I could have just stayed in bed and distracted myself with YouTube or whatever but I didn’t. I got up and made things happen even though I felt like doing anything else. I worked on a project and went to the gym and wrote some today. It’s small choices like that that add up over time.
I won’t let the hard times drag me down into the abyss. I can’t expect life to be all sunshine and roses. I wouldn’t want it that way anyways. The hard times, the trials, and the challenges are practice grounds for growth and I will choose to look at them with gratitude and take away the lessons that I can. Life goes on I suppose, and the hard times will pass like everything else. It’s okay. We can just continue to do our best and operate from a place of love and compassion. And it’s the hard times that really bring into your awareness just how strong and resilient you can be. So I embrace this day and thank you for the growing pains! ❤
selfgrowthhub.com 
Leave a Reply