It’s been 3 weeks since the last time, and it almost feels like I am replying to a text that I forgot to answer to. Like when you need to update an old friend about your life, but you need to take the time to sit to really put your words together because what you have to say can’t possibly fit in a brief text. The weeks are passing by, messages are piling up, and I am still trying to figure out what to say.
So let’s start with: I am okay. Okay in an odd way. Truth is, I feel trapped in a Jane Austen novel, where everything and nothing happens at the same time. It is a hard thing to explain, perhaps it is that infamous mid-twenties crisis catching up to me. Somedays are so bright. Filled with new people, new conversations, new illusions, new feelings. Newness at its finest. Things feel like they are moving forward. At a fast pace, it thrills me. Then come the other kind of days. Filled with the same questions, the same arguments, the same fears and ultimately the failed opportunities. Everything feels settled, until it finds a way to unsettle. These days feel like a panic attack that never ends, with a constant pain in my chest and a mind that refuses to clear itself. I am going to be honest, that scares me. I am crapping in my pants in the most unexciting way because there was just some point along the way where I just said “stop dreaming Neguine” and banned the most exciting things out of my mind. All left are the unhealthy fears: What if nothing ever feels settled? What if I end up doing something that doesn’t challenge me enough to be my best self? What if nothing ever feels enough? What if I am not good enough? What if I don’t find extraordinary? What if I end up alone? What if I get bored? What if, What if, What if. So many of them. Some are innocent and irrelevant, others are totally deep and meaningful. It baffled me that as an individual, I probably spend 90% of my time being scared of things not turning out the way I expect them to. Thinking that if they don’t, I will have failed once more. Then something happened. A pow. A wow. Maybe even a Bang. I went out to Kygo’s concert last month and I felt the happiest I had in a while. Happy to allow myself to be someone else: someone who isn’t scared, who goes for it, who is used to pursuing a new adventure everyday, who constantly look for new dreams to chase. I forgot who I was and danced it all, happy on beer, yelling all I had bottled up for a long time. It got me thinking. What if everyday was like today? Another what if, yet a positive one for a change. What If I lived everyday without fears and worked hard to make it as magic as that night? What if I allowed myself to only be the 10% of myself who isn’t scared? So I decided that I would be that person. To say yes. Yes to more newness. Yes to my dream job. Yes to ideas that keep you up at night. Yes to people that keep you up at night. Yes to all the things I said no to for so long. To have fun. To chase a new unexpected and insane adventure everyday. To have private conversations with someone I barely know. To fall in love with new places. To write stuff that people will tag me crazy for. To travel here and there. To start filming self-help content on Youtube. To crash a wedding a la Blair and Chuck. To feel unashamed of my unsettlement. Call me crazy, but what if it works. What if, What if.
Neg! You have been missed!
You know how much I love reading your blog but sometimes we all need a break.
I love your new ‘say yes’ method – and I think I wil try and do the same thing!
thank you for all your inspiration always!
XO
Britta
Baby girl, we’re the same. I’ve felt exactly like this, for months, the goods and the bad are so extreme, I’m constantly titling drastically on an uneven scale. I wish we lived close enough to meet for a coffee and spend hours pouring out our thoughts, it feels so needed and normally does me a lot of good! I need to remind myself to just do and to just be, everyday as much as I can, to not settle and push forward with a hell of a lot of fun and hard work. An ideal scenario, that one day I’ll make sure happens – is bossing the week with work, exciting campaigns, evenings drinks and walks with friends and my other half, then randomly ending up abroad at the weekend for a night or two, spontaneously of course, exploring and laughing endlessly. I just have to keep saying yes, like yourself and not hold back. xxxx
I’ve been feeling like that for a while now. Guess we’re all having mid-20s crises! I’ve been trying hard to change my mindset so that it’s always positive what-ifs but I can’t help but feel down sometimes. But then those amazing days happen, or even small moments or quotes or whatever that are just so motivating and they make it all worthwhile. I don’t know if it’s possible to never feel uncertainty but it’s definitely possible to control how often you feel it and how you react to it.
xx
Once again you made me realized how you and I are the same. Two different individuals but again, the same soul within us. I am writing these days a post similar to this one because I felt the same way like you did these past month or two. And I am writing and writing and it’s hard to put all those emotions out. I want a real talk but yet again I am scared to put all those fears out. And I totally understand every word you wrote here. I also heard myself saying: “Zana, stop dreaming.” But If I stop dreaming, I wouldn’t be who I am. But it’s also heard to not have all figured it out… like having your dream job because this country is messed up so badly. Thanks for speaking your heart out. You really encouraged me to do the same.
Sending you all my love, sis! <3