My Life In The Last Six Months: Navigating Mid-Twenties And Lost Dreams

These days I’ve been struggling to write about emotions. Things around me seem more bland than usual, and even when they spark some colours, the impact doesn’t last long. I tried crazy things — trust me, I threw my heart around, I pushed my boundaries, yet within days or even hours, my world got switched back on mute and I felt frustratingly untouchable. It’s not even like I’m unhappy or depressed. I’m in a good place, I’ve got important stuff sorted out, I’m healthy, I’m stable. Perhaps, I’m too stable. I just can’t seem to excite myself over a prolonged period of time anymore no matter what I do. It feels a bit as though some fire in me has been extinguished and the one to blame is nothing dramatic but adulthood.

There’s something about this age that has desensitised me. I used to be very intense, easily evoked, highly anxious, deeply insecure. Even though it was painful to go through, I miss it. I felt for people. I treasured little things. I was true to myself and I found an anchor in heartbreak. Life seemed so full of wonders, sparkling with dreams and hopes, fantasies and possibilities. Now, after a number of particularly tough experiences which have straightened me out, I only see reality — unfiltered, messy, random, uninspiring, finite. Many days, I find it hard to think of anything to look forward to. I don’t even feel the need to hold onto anything or even myself like a type of body dissociations. Heck, I don’t even think twice about those double or triple texts anymore. I have surprisingly so much chill that I think I might be secretly dead. 

For so long, I’ve trained myself to stop wanting what I want and rationally avoid emotional attachment — it is (sadly) a success. I also realised the dream I used to have growing up was merely a borrowed one — from my family, from the Eastern society, from mass media. Now, seeing the world for myself and understanding who I’m better, most of that dream doesn’t mean much to me anymore. Big corporate names, high rise apartments, handsome boyfriends, chic personal image — Well, I do aim for a good lifestyle but my world doesn’t spin around superficial things anymore. There’s no hung-up, no irrational fixation. I don’t need anything more than what I already have. I generally know my worth and my place in this world. I’m just as confident in my gym clothes without makeup as when I’m in full business mode with my hair done. I’m perfectly fine being alone. There’s just so much less now that could inspire and ignite me. I feel liberated but at the same time disoriented.

Honestly, I blame London. This city life is a lonely, isolating one. I came here cloud-shaped, now I’m all geometric. I didn’t have a choice. I had to do what I did to survive, to not get hurt so easily, so deeply, so frequently anymore. The people here, they’re all black and white and shadily grey. There’s rarely any pink or red or green. Or if there is, those people are probably just like me — we have learned to blend in and don’t realise our heart has long fallen into a deep coma. The last, and probably the only significant time, I fell in love and found a true connection was with someone who didn’t even live here, and I’ve been here for seven years. Seven years and I couldn’t find one single person to truly vibe with — what does it say about this city? Sometimes I think I might have made a terribly wrong choice (though I still give myself full credits for having made as many right choices as I could at the back of this potentially wrong choice.)

I love the city life, I do. I enjoy the business atmosphere. But I start to think I don’t belong here. I keep dating and fucking incompatible guys and wondering why they are all stuck in third grades with their emotions. Using this limited perspective of life to make up human reality and conclude that this is all there is, or there’s no one in this world for me, or I’m forever stuck here, would be very short-sighted and unintelligent of me. Therefore, a natural next step would be to roam around and see more of the world. But I’m based here now. I will be here for at least the next few years and I need to find a way to make the most out of this, to be fully human, to connect with other lives in a meaningful way. I don’t want to waste my time. I’m in my twenties. This is such a critical stage of life and I don’t want to carelessly pass it by. I don’t want to be geometric either; I will do all that I could to preserve my funky clouds.

Perhaps I should be more grateful. I should give myself less shit. I should acknowledge that I’m still young, and it’s okay, and it’s already gone way better than I could’ve hoped for. My arriving here, sometimes feeling so low I want die, only means that I was so loved, so happy, so high I couldn’t possibly go up further. Living itself isn’t easy. I don’t believe there’s such thing as being the happiest in the world, or someone who’s happy all the time, and I don’t even know whether it’s something to strive for. I’m still figuring how to live and be. Sometimes I’m even worried my whole belief and justice system is actually skewed from the get-go. Like, even when I think I’m doing the right thing, it’s already wrong. Or the characteristics I take as nature of me are actually just habitual or environmental conditioning, and so my entire existence might have none such solid ground as I’ve always believed. It’s probably true — I don’t know. I don’t have the answers to everything and I’m way too philosophical for my own good, but I think it’s good to always question and keep my mind flexible.

Right now, I’m just trying to do the best I could given all what I know. I’m just trying to fall in love with my life a bit more. The last few months have been probably more traumatic than I could ever consciously acknowledge (well, something personal happened), and there must be a lot of hidden wounds that I won’t see until a few years later. But for now, I know I should be patient with myself. It’s okay. I can only do so much. I’m learning to feel okay with this peacefulness and simplicity of my life, with so much chill, with being slightly detached, with geometry, with wanting less, with not knowing what’s next, with being on my own, without intimacy. I will see this through like I always do. You know what I would say, right?

“What’s the better option, really?”