Author: Maddie Shorkey

Depression isn’t a glorified heroic battle for my sanity. Instead, it meant not getting out of bed for days because I couldn’t bear the thought of moving my lifeless body, refusing to believe it wouldn’t shatter upon impact with the floor. Sometimes it was digging to find the willpower to go downstairs and make a bowl of soup or do a load of laundry and that was the most impressive thing that got accomplished that week. Sometimes it meant lying on the floor staring at the ceiling for hours on end because the ceiling over me was the only thing protecting me from the outside world. Sometimes it meant that every bone in my body ached and the thought of moving it brought me to tears.

It wasn’t drinking coffee with shaky hands knowing things would get better; it was hoping they would get better. It wasn’t getting a good night’s sleep and feeling well rested upon waking up the next day. It was not a book store visit where I met the love of my life and they somehow put the broken pieces back together and I was whole again. Instead, it was tear stained pillows and trash covering my room because the thought of cleaning it made me sick. It was a pill when I woke up and a fake smile plastered on my face. It was slow cluttered traffic in my brain while I was spinning in circles trying to find the next exit but I was stuck. It was therapy. It was telling my friends I was busy when in all reality I couldn’t handle the thought of leaving the house. It was missed calls and unanswered texts. It was losing ‘me’ along the way and not knowing which way was up.

But I found myself again one morning when I forced myself out of bed and opened the window and smelled the fresh air. I ran outside and danced under the sun and nothing had felt that warm in a long time. The rays on my skin and the grass beneath my feet–nothing had felt that normal in so long. I found myself in the books I read and the music I listened to. It was walking in the woods and witnessing the sun going to sleep. And when the sun rose the next day, I found myself waking up even earlier just to get a better view. I found myself while pacing down the open roads in the middle of the night with the windows down and music blaring. I found myself while tracing back my footprints and listening to the waters rush along the rivers. I laughed under the stars and remembered that the world is much bigger than I am and there is so much more out there than I had experienced in my few short years here. And I thought to myself “I’m going to be alright.”  I found the warmth of living and breathing again. I found the person I was before I realized that bruises weren’t just physical. I found the person who still believed that life is good.

And that’s just it. One day you realize. You will realize and you’ll look back at the times you thought you couldn’t possibly go on and realize you could. It always gets harder before it gets better, but it will get better. And you may have days again where you think you can’t take another step, but I promise you can. I promise you that these storms are only trying to wash you clean.

I’ve spent most of my life chasing the person I want to be. Because 18-year-old me will have better friends, and 20-year-old me will land a killer job, and 25-year-old me will be madly in love. And me 6 months from now will be skinnier, and me a year from now will be more confident, and me some time from now will be better somehow.

For years, this is what I thought. That if I could just wait it out, everything would get better. The nights waiting as you sit on your twin bed where you’ve written your entire novel, a dozen empty coffee mugs still dirty on the nightstand and screaming until your lungs burn.  It took me a long time to realize that life doesn’t work that way. Older doesn’t mean happier or easier, and it certainly doesn’t mean better; it just means older. Life isn’t a well plotted screen play, or a checklist, or a waiting room. Life isn’t about growing up to be all that we’ve ever wanted; it’s just about growing. It’s about love, and change, and crying yourself to sleep when it’s all too much. And working a crappy job, and kissing your best friend even though they might not like you back, and calling your mom all the time because you miss her. Its fights, and promotions, and hospital visits. Its school and the start of jobs, and the end of friendships and relationships. And then it’s another wedding of another college friend, the fourth one this year, but this time you meet a guy who’s just as down for love as you and you dance all night. And then it’s this: he cries when you say “I do.” And then you have a kid with your eyes and his dorky ears.

It’s all of these things, and bad things, and good things, and the raw realization that it doesn’t get better or worse, it just gets different. It always changes. And somehow that makes it more wonderful. Because future you may have the friends, and the boy, and the job, but she didn’t get it by waiting around. She is a product of you, right now, tomorrow, changing and growing every moment that follows. She worries too often about what people think of her. She still doesn’t have it together. And maybe that’s what I’ve learned after all this time: nobody has it together. We’re all just here, floundering around in pursuit of being something more. Broken, thoughtful creatures with too much time on our hands, desperate for the companionship of someone who reminds us that we are not alone. We don’t have much of anything figured out. Maybe we never will. But more importantly, I think that’s how it’s supposed to be.

Do you ever realize how badly you’re going to miss a moment while you’re living it? Like, ‘Wow, these are the good days. I am here and I am happy and I feel alive.’ They say that when you’re about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. All of your memories, all of your experiences, all of your friends and family, everything. You get one last glimpse into the life you led. What was your life like? Are you happy with the way things turned out or would you want a do over on certain things? Ultimately, people are happy with the choices they made. They lived their life how they wanted to and they wouldn’t change a thing. But I have a question for you. In all the years you have been on this earth, did you ever have a fear of growing old? The fear of another birthday or losing a loved one? This is something that crosses my mind often. It is not a constant nag in my brain, more so just always there at the back of my mind to say “hey, don’t forget I’m back here”. There are a lot of things that go along with the fear of getting older that you just cannot control.

Working in a nursing home has made me be more cautious about how I’m living my life. My residents often have pictures of themselves hung in their rooms from when they were young. A lot of the time, I get to hear the stories about how they lived their lives and they are so eager to tell you and let you in to know what it was like. They tell me where they lived and what school they went to or how they met their significant other and raised a family. It is a wonderful thing watching their faces light up as they talk about their life and their family. They never complain about being old and no longer being able to do the things they used do. Instead, they focus on all of the good things that happened during their lifetime. Acceptance comes with age.

No matter how long we dwell on the fear of aging, it is never going to change. You are going to get old, it is inevitable. It will eventually happen. Time will pass, the sun will continue to set and rise, and flowers will bloom and wilt. Life will still go on, no matter how we choose to look at the outcome of it. And you need to realize you aren’t the only person in this world growing older. Everyone else is growing older too. Every physical being living on this planet. 

So instead of sitting there, scared with fear, embrace it. Embrace that growing older is a part of life. Embrace that you are going to get wrinkles, that your physical body is going to deteriorate, and that you will eventually die. Rather than fight it, accept that it’s going to happen. When you come to terms with this, your viewpoint shifts. Because now, instead of trapping yourself with negative thoughts and fears, you start to focus on more important things. Instead of thinking what you could or should have done before, you think about what you can do now. Instead of devoting time to things out of your control, you can focus on the things that really matter. Instead of living an illusion that it just won’t happen, you start living your life in the present.

Don’t wake up one day only to regret having missed out on so many things in life. Don’t miss out on all the wonderful things that are out there in your life now, because you are too busy fearing something you cannot control. Don’t fear growing older now, only to look back later in life and regret not having lived life the way you wanted. Once you start doing that, you will truly be living life to the fullest.

Everyone has been burned by someone at least once. And if you say you haven’t, there is a 99.9% chance you’re lying. People are out for themselves, its human nature.  When you are born, you are taught to love everyone, no matter what. You are not born with a mindset that you can trust no one. A lot of the time, people give you enough reasoning to show that they are a good person and that you can place your faith in them. Over time though, people develop qualities that make it hard to give them your trust by the way they act or the things they do. The reason you don’t trust someone is ultimately because they give you a reason not to. It happens to everyone, its life. What you give and how you act towards someone, makes for how much trust you are going to get. If you give someone a reason to constantly question everything and be cautious about everything, then you are going to make for one tough situation. But if you are open and honest, there should be no problem at all.

But, what exactly is trust?

Trusting someone means that you think they are reliable and you have confidence in them. The true definition is “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something”. By someone putting their trust in you, you are telling this person that you will be there for the good and bad times, be a friend when needed, be a shoulder to cry on, or simply a person to give advice. You cannot demand or prove trust, or ask for it in return. Trusting someone is a choice that each individual person makes.

Without trust, we don’t collaborate, we simply cooperate. If you are not willing to trust someone, you simply just “cooperate” with the things they do and say. You don’t put in the effort to make it a collaboration.   Communication is a big key player when it comes to trust, making sure that you are willing to listen just as much as you are willing to speak.

You don’t trust until you’ve been trusted. There’s give and take on both sides, because it is a mutual exchange. Is a two way street. If you're not willing to give it, you're not going to get it. Ultimately, it comes down to who the person is and what the situation is. Past situations influence our feelings towards new ones. You won’t ever forget the moment your trust was completely shattered, and your anxiety took the front seat and steered your mind very, very far away from your heart. But when placing your trust in someone new, you expect them to be a decent human being and not let you down.

It takes a lot of courage and trust to look past what you've been through, and trust someone new not to put you through it again.