I'm exactly where I need to be right now
"Sometimes when we lose our way, we must return to the basics. That's where the beauty lies. La bellesa de la vida." - Mozart in the Jungle
For the past couple months I've been thinking of what to write and how to write it and I kept hitting a dead end; I just couldn't find my voice. It's now 2017 and I know New Year's resolutions are very cliche but I've always been a goal-oriented person, which is maybe why deep down I really like them. I took a long moment to analyze what I want from myself, what makes me happy, what's the next step in 2017, etc. and it became clear that I was over complicating things when it came to writing this blog entry. Keeping it simple is the key. "Johnny, you don't have to explain everything", I told myself, and once I did, I was able to start writing again.
I think the best analogy that describes 2016 for me is that a hole was cut in my balloon and it slowly started losing air over a long period of time. Early in the year, my relationship started off with some question marks about whether we wanted the same things or not, and as anyone knows, that's important stuff to hammer out. It's never fun being in limbo (unless of course it's the kind found at a luau) about your relationship and I definitely let it get to me, to the point where I became disconnected. I lost all the joy out of doing things I once loved to do; it sucked. It wasn't easy for either of us...needless to say, everything happens for a reason and in October, my relationship of almost 3 years ended.
After the breakup, I felt a little lost and needed to process some of these emotions and thoughts that I had. It's not that I didn't know how to be alone or what it was like to be single, its more like I was no longer the same person that I was the last time I had been single so naturally I couldn't just go back to being that person. One key thing that I noticed is that almost as soon as we had broken up, I felt this feeling like a weight had been lifted and this sense of peace came back into my life that I had not felt in a very long time.
In order to help figure things out, I decided to see a therapist, which is something I would highly recommend to anyone. In my culture, there is this view that if you see a therapist, you are somehow unwell (I remember my sister once telling my mom that she should go see a shrink and my mom immediately shouted, I'M NOT CRAZY!" LOL). I've never seen a therapist before in my life but my experience was a very positive one; like I said, I would recommend it to anyone. I learned a lot about myself and ultimately it wasn't shocking to find out that a lot of what I had rationalized in my decision making, turned out to be correct. The main direction that I got from my sessions is to stop worrying so much about others, keep busy, focus on family and friends (especially with the holidays coming up) but above all focus on me. Focus on me, both physically and mentally, and the rest will come. The holidays weren't exactly easy but thanks to the support of family and friends, I survived. They were there for me during the roller coaster of emotions that happen after a breakup.
It's the second week of 2017 and I'm exactly where I need to be right now :)
I've been working on planning out what I want for myself this year, what makes me happy-you know, the basics, because what better way to work on yourself than by going back to the "oh so simple" but yet "muy importante" basics. As you may have seen (with my running streak), I've come back and found the joy of running that I once had. I already signed up for my next marathon (New Mexico), which is in May and I've even written out my 2017 goals (which I will share in my next blog entry. And no, it won't take me another year to write that one haha. I promise).
Last year was what it was, however, I wouldn't trade it for the world because there are a lot of memories and lessons learned there, that ultimately have brought me to this point in time. I've been away for a while, but I'm back and ready to discover what the new year has in store for me.
