Therese Marie

Life’s been kind of sucking lately.

Shocker, right? Lil’s having a hard time in society still. But here I am, in the thick of February, on the edge of March, desperately running around through each day trying to hold it all together. I guess it’s better than the place I was a year ago, which was the couch all the time because I was so depressed I couldn’t move. Progress, right?!

It feels like I’m living moment to moment.

And not in the good, carefree way. Rather in the I-can-survive-this-for-another-five-minutes kind of way. And then it’s just another five minutes after that. You can do anything for five minutes! Or until the end of the month! And then another month comes and it’s just one more month, and I tell myself I can handle this because there is an expiration date on the horizon.

So I drift, almost mindlessly, trying to save my heart from breaking because if I think too hard about the bills I have to pay or the appointments I need to attend or the children I have to pick up I will surely shatter. I’m not damaged goods, but I’m not invincible.

The other night, I almost completely lost it. I suddenly found myself drowning underneath a pile of “first world” problems. In one weekend I had to pay rent, furnish the apartment, make a statement for a car accident, repair my car, and fix my laptop. It was suffocating. I didn’t want any of it. Bills? Cars? Electronics? It all seemed superfluous, and NOT worth the trouble it all caused.

But there are moments where I break free,

moments that shock me. Like when I walked back to my apartment after a night out with friends and all of a sudden I felt strange. I felt awake. I felt like I’ve been asleep for so so long and I will be going back to sleep soon, but for right then, I was awake. I breathe those moments in, because they don’t come too often.

I don’t like to admit it, but I feel like we’re all trapped. 

And we don’t know it. There are so many things to hold us back, hold us down. Money hurts so much. It is so easily taken away, but so necessary.

All these suffocating things have got me to thinking and wondering: WHY am I here? What am I doing? What am I trying to do?

Working a dead-end job might not have been the best way to spend my time (and is definitely what’s contributing to my current depression) but let’s look at the positives.

You’re going no where in your career, you’re barely earning enough money to survive, you’re not sure you’ll have enough money for your next adventure, and bad things are happening to you. How do you get out of that bottomless pit?

We all have a saving Grace somewhere,

and sometimes we don’t see her. It takes a moment. But think about it: what or who do you love? Chances are you’re not spending every day mindlessly frowning. What or who makes you smile?

One of the people who make me smile is literally named Grace. She’s one of the cool people I’ve met since I’ve moved to Richmond and started working that dead end job. She’s cool because she’s inspired me to keep adventuring. She’s important because she’s positive, she hasn’t given up on any dream. Following her are other key players like Mason and Annie also from work, Mitch the Bike Man, Kal (aka Walkamole) from the trail, Will the OTHER bike man, Joey from the coffee shop, my amazing cousins, Josh from the Local, and so so many more.

If there’s one thing I’ve been graced with, it’s amazing people. I’ve been scared shitless since moving to Richmond that I’d never find friends. Everyone says it’s so hard to meet people in the real world. It’s so hard to make friends when you’re not going to school. And they’re right. In fact, I didn’t have friends for awhile here, and I complained about it to my mom. But I was so satisfied to shock her the other night when I was spending time out at a birthday party.

That’s right, this girl has a support group here in a city where she previously knew 5 people.

“Life is simple, but it’s not easy.”

That’s something the ladies at the collision repair shop told me. And they’re right. I’m realizing it more and more each day. It’s not that it’s complicated at all. It’s that I’m having a hard time surviving. But having a job with health insurance won’t make me happy. It won’t fix my problems. Hard work will fix my problems. Focus, change, growth. Those are the things that are important for improvement.

And no matter where I am, whether on the trail or in an office, I will have bad days. But I will also have good days. And I can’t wait for all of those and more.

Fly on,

Lil