Cosmos of Kate

For me, growing up was relatively stress free and painless. I had wonderful parents, a brother who annoyed me but I still loved, grandparents who were always around, space to roam and explore, and an inquisitive mind. I recall my high school graduation day very fondly, as one of the best days of my life. That day I felt as if the entire world was at my fingertips, I was beyond excited to finally start the rest of my life and see what it had in store for me. If I could speak to that past self today, I would sit her down and give it to her straight: Life is hard. You do have the world at your fingertips, but you will soon learn there is very little you can actually control. Hold on tightly to the things you can control, and be wise about those decisions, they will lead you down a good path. But know that life will be chock full of pain, heartache, struggle, and disappointment. It will not be what you’re dreaming up in your mind right now, but it will be good. It will always be good, just in ways you you’re not expecting. Keep an open mind and learn to roll with the punches, this is what will save you.

I wanted the life that most young women want. Go to college and get a degree, land a stable job that pays well, fall in love, get married, buy a house, have kids, raise a family, grow old, retire, and travel the world. This was my dream. And this is not at all where I landed.

I did learn quickly that there are things I can control, and things I can’t. I was able to choose my career path, and I chose wisely. I thought I had met the love of my life, but he decided I wasn’t it for him. I regrouped and used it as an opportunity to explore things and people I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise while my career kept advancing. I soon met the next “Mr. Right” and had a long six years with him that I thought would turn into forever. Once again, he and life had other plans. But during the time with him I wisely decided to buy a house, one that could be my forever home if it needed to be. This was a decision I made for myself, one that I could control. When he left, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to continue affording the house, but I made it work, and kept advancing my career at the same time.

It was at this point that I fully realized life doesn’t pull its punches. It follows through. Hard. It goes straight for the KO. But it was also at this point that I learned to dance, to be light on my feet, to bounce around the metaphorical swings life was throwing at me. This is when I learned the beauty of pivoting. Instead of trying to force life to provide me a Mr. Right, I pivoted inward, focusing on myself. I started therapy, I dated various people, I paid attention to the positives and negatives and started making decisions more with my head and less with my heart. Because every time I let the silly, happy heart lead the way, it got us into trouble. But I also noticed something else happening around this time. When the heart would lead us down a path that got us hurt (again), the head was quicker at reeling us in, pulling us back, forming walls, allowing us to regain composure where it was safe, where we couldn’t be hurt. This is when I truly started understanding the meaning and necessity of resilience and adaptability.

When I learned that ultra independence is a trauma response I immediately thought of it as something negative, something I shouldn’t be doing, something I needed to let go of in order to open myself back up and let people in. It felt like something I needed to fix about myself. Something to be ashamed of, even though the majority of people admired it. I worked for years trying to break down those walls and allow people back in, to be vulnerable, to allow my heart to be seen again, and let it take the lead again from time to time. I realized that while I had been protecting myself, doing what my mind thought was best for self preservation, it also forced stagnation. I wasn’t growing, I wasn’t learning, I wasn’t letting myself take risks because I didn’t want to hurt anymore. But pain is part of the process. I couldn’t truly live a full life if there was no risk of emotional pain.

I went back to school (again) for masters in nursing informatics, I pivoted my career once again to something completely different, something I was deeply deeply passionate about this time, not just something that was safe and interesting enough. I made the conscious decision to end a safe and comfortable situationship in hopes of finding real love again, something that could be long-term, potentially forever. I let myself dream big again. But I am once again being reminded why having walls up, why having my head protect my heart, was the safe and easy choice.

I learned earlier this year that my current company is being sold and I would need to find a new job within the year. I didn’t panic, I used it as another push to explore opportunities I never would have considered. I discovered new things about myself and my interests, developed new passions, and opened doors and windows for myself that I didn’t even know existed. This process led to interviewing for my LITERAL dream job with a worldwide tech company and making it to the very last round of interviews! Only to have that elation and hope ripped out from under me when I was notified they were pausing hiring for that position for an unknown amount of time. Gutted doesn’t describe what I felt in that moment. I subsequently interviewed for another job, one incredibly intriguing to me but not quite as exciting as the previous one, once again making it to the last round of interviews. Only to be listening to crickets for four full weeks and forced to continue the exhaustive sleuthing for other potential job opportunities.

During this process I also discovered something entirely new about myself. While listening to a podcast with someone who has aphantasia (inability to voluntarily create mental images), it struck me that I have this as well, which I confirmed through tests. This is something current studies show affects only 1-4% of the world’s population. To say I was devastated would be an understatement. Not that anything about my actual life had changed, I’m still the same person I’ve always been with the same brain, but learning that I am unable to do something that seems so easy and utterly amazing to everyone else, frankly… pisses me the fuck off. I felt broken, less than, inferior. But instead of wallowing in self pity, I joined a support group, and started digging deep into research on the topic to learn more about it and myself in the process. Turns out I FEEL more in relation to not being able to voluntarily visualize things. Instead of processing things in images, I process them through feeling, through emotions, through sensation. Which in its own way, sometimes feels like my very own superpower.

And for some masochistic reason, I also decided this would be an excellent time to actively begin searching for true love again, because I’m not getting any younger, amiright? And low and behold, Mr. Right found me! We instantly connected on every level, were exactly each other’s types, both had literally everything the other was looking for in a potential partner. We talked for hours on the phone each night while waiting to be able to meet once our schedules cleared up. Had plans we were both eagerly anticipating. I let myself daydream about what my life could be like going forward, how much it would change for the better and maybe finally be the version of life I have always strived for. Until two days ago.

Life doesn’t just happen to us, it teaches us. We should all be learning from the lessons life provides. In this particular case, while getting to know me more, this person who seemed perfect for me, realized something that life had been teaching him over the years. He knew that entering into a serious relationship at this point would not be wise. Not because he didn’t want it, but because he wanted it badly, and wouldn’t be able to do it justice in his current situation. Another thing life teaches us as we get older is admiration for those who can truly make the hard decisions, especially when they go against everything we want for ourselves. But regardless of the admiration I feel toward him for being able to make the difficult decision, I had let my heart lead yet again, only to be left raw, unprotected, and vulnerable to more pain.

This year of my life that I imagined going so well for me, has ended up being one of the most trying years of my life thus far, and it’s barely half over. We can’t control life. And while that may seem like an amazing superpower if we did possess it, it likely would be incredibly boring. The keys to rolling with the punches and avoiding the KOs of life are knowledge, adaptability, and resilience. All of which we can only obtain by pushing through the pain and allowing ourselves to be hurt in the first place. Am I emotionally drained right now by the events of this year? Yes. Do I regret the choices I have made thus far? Not at all. And am I currently reconstructing the same inner walls I previously built to protect myself from future harm? Absolutely not. I’m adapting them. I’m learning that resilience is based in adaptability. If you reconstruct the same walls after every painful experience, life will find new ways to break them down, leaving you exposed when you didn’t intend to be. Learning from the difficult experiences allows the walls to adapt, to become less rigid, to develop an easy on/off switch instead of needing to be built by hand, brick by brick, and destroyed with a sledgehammer each time. My walls are becoming a part of me now, instead of something outside of me. More like an exoskeleton that I can easily don and doff at will than an actual wall around a fortress.

That girl who felt she had the world at her fingertips still exists. But she’s changed. She’s learned from her constant battle with life, and created new ways to move with it instead of against it. And my hope for her going forward is that she will always continue to learn, adapt, and persevere through the pain.