The 2010s are over just as I felt that it was beginning. It’s kind of terrifying how quickly time can pass by. To be completely honest, I have spent a lot of things decade numbing myself out and avoiding a lot of the difficult emotions that I am now forcing myself to accept and face everyday. I feel as if I have rarely had a quiet evening in during this last month, and as I sit up organizing and contemplating my thoughts, I realized that the last 10 years were perhaps my most challenging.
I’ve been called a pessimist before, but I do prefer the term realistic. Realistically, the 2020s are probably not going to be “better” than the 2010s. Besides, “better” is subjective, and it really depends on the mindset I’m in as I review the 2010s. Admittedly, the mindset I am in right now is not the most joyful. It is usually not joyful when I feel that I need to show vulnerability. So here goes… 2010s.
Going into 2010, I was starting my second semester of university. I thought that commuting from home would be a great way to save money, but it proved to be way too difficult for me to balance my class schedule. I was moving out for the first time in my life, and it was super exciting. To be honest, at the time, I was just excited to have more freedom to do what I please whenever I wanted. It was a freedom I never grew up having. I always had a curfew of 10PM, and even as a 19 year old college student, I lived by those rules. If I could tell 19 year old me, to just calm the fuck down about being “independent.” I would. But I was in a hurry to become an adult that lived on their own with no curfew.
In 2010, I “lost” my best friend due to, what I like to call, a sobering realization that she was not a person that was healthy to have around. In a dramatic and unnecessary turn of events, we went from being best friends to straight up enemies within a day. It was drama that I never wanted or asked for. Instead of fighting for myself, I reacted with cowardice and I retreated from social interactions and building friendships.
Going into 2011, I was deeply isolating myself despite my new living situation. It took me some time to learn that just because one friend ended up treating me like a disposable object, doesn’t mean they all will. I had 4 new roommates, 3 of which I became friendly with. One of them is still one of my closest and dearest friends. She and I lived together from 2010 until 2013, when I graduated from university. It took all of that time for me to tell her that I love her and that she was one of my best friends. It took me all that time to open up to her and and show her the side of me that cries in the shower or whenever I’m alone.
Speaking of crying in the shower, I spent a lot of the 2010s crying in the shower or in bed. Or just crying in general. My only rule was that no one could see me cry. A lot of times, when things got difficult or emotions became too much to deal with. Instead of crying in front of people, I would smile. I’d plaster a hard smile on my face while gritting my teeth and convince myself that being sad, overwhelmed, or anxious was stupid and for the weak. Sometimes, I wish I cried a bit more in front of other people, because one of the most difficult days of my life, I felt 1000% better just crying into the shoulder of someone that I realized doesn’t find me weak or pitiful for crying.
Looking back on my college years, I know that what I experienced was depression. Perhaps if I had taken the steps then to properly address the lack of passion to do things, the disinterest I had in most things, I would be better off now. Maybe I’d be a normal, stable, homeowner that was married to a partner that I love and trust, and can see past next week with. Actually, that’s a stretch… maybe I’d be a person that wouldn’t melt down in complete distress just thinking about the possibility of that kind of life. The problem with hindsight is that it’s always 20/20. I can pick out every single misstep and every single flaw in all of the decisions I’ve made. The fact is, I did not seek help for what I understood as depression. I thought I didn’t need help because, what the fuck was I even depressed about anyways? Being alive? Being so fortunate that I will graduate without student debt while the rest of my peers will be paying for their educations for the next 10, 20, or 30 years? It seemed ridiculous to me that I could fathom being depressed when I was so lucky.
So what happened after 2013? I graduated from college and pursued what I always “planned” to pursue. I pursued a position in the mental health and social services field. I learned so much from my job working at a family center implementing parent coaching and supervised parental visit evaluations. I learned that there are a lot of people out there in the world that need a lot of help. Especially in the mental health field. I learned that everybody could benefit from therapy (but not me, of course, because vulnerability is scary). I also learned that all of other people’s emotions, issues, and struggles were a bit too much for me to handle. So, in 2014, I pursued my post-graduate license to teach English abroad.
I landed in Korea in October of 2014. The “training week” was an entire week of stress. You either pass the final mock teaching exam or they send you home packing. I put everything aside to go to Korea and teach, and to go home empty handed would have devastated me. Not going to lie, that week of training was pure hell, and I think the first true signs that I had a big problem with anxiety began to show itself in the way that I dealt with the possibility of going home with no job. Insomnia became a persistent friend that persisted even after I passed training. If I was going to be a teacher, I was not going to fuck it up. I was going to be the best teacher I could be. I worked, and I worked, and I worked. All I cared about was perfection in everything that I did. I took all of the peer and supervisor criticism to heart and began to shape myself as a teacher. I never thought I would be able to teach anyone anything.
During my program for the TEFL license, my supervising professor had told me it was difficult for people to take me seriously as an instructor due to how soft spoken and timid my demeanor was. The exact words were, “If you’re going to be a teacher, you need to be taken seriously. You need a teacher voice, and you need to look the part.” She criticized every aspect of me. The way I dressed, the way I held myself, the way I spoke. It humbled and infuriated me to the point where, I knew that if I ever got a job teaching, I would be the best damn teacher I could be.
So here comes some positivity from the 2010s. The thing I am most proud of is, surprisingly, not the fact that I graduated from university and attended graduate school. The thing I am most proud of are the four “Best Teacher” awards I received from my academy here. As a regular instructor, I showed my true potential and I not only loved teaching the students, it was the first time in my life that I felt fulfilled and challenged by a job. After promoting to Head Instructor, I was no longer eligible to receive the “Best Teacher” awards, but I found joy in helping and teaching other teachers methodology and how to be more effective. Truly, the most rewarding thing that came out of the 2010s was my career in teaching that I still can’t quite give up. I keep coming back here, Korea, to teach. I know that, one day, I will go home, and I’ll need to either get licensed to teach in the States or find a path that will fulfill me in a similar way. But for now, I see teaching here as something that brings me great joy and peace even when I am feeling turbulent.
The last few years of the 2010s were a trainwreck of emotions, tough decisions, and nasty battles with myself about what was “right” or “wrong.” The last few years are the years that I must untangle a bit at a time in therapy and on my own. As I feel stronger and more comfortable with that aspect of my life, I will begin to write down and articulate my journey further. Just know, that 2017-2019 have been some of the hardest years of my life. I hope that the worst is behind me, but realistically, I know that things can always be worse. \
As I look into 2020, I hope to live more genuinely. That isn’t to say that I lived a lie and have been lying this whole time. The genuineness I am referring to is more of a genuineness to myself. Respecting my wishes and believing in my own judgement a little bit more and following through with what my judgement is telling me are all things that I must continue to improve on and hope that I can do better in the 2020s.
I’m ready.
Turbulent Mind 