My year of self discovery
I write this, because I think that it might be useful for my future self or to someone else who also feels lost.
Today is my 23rd birthday, but it has also been a year since I started fixing myself, not only mentally but also physically. 8.5 years ago I had an accident that change me in ways I could’t even imagine at the time. I was coming home from my tennis training (the thing that made me really really happy at the time); I was a kid that was going too fast without thinking until I fell off my bike. To make the story shorter: I hurt my right shoulder and back badly. I haven’t been able to play tennis at the same level ever again. That’s what hurted the most, having an useless shoulder for more than a year and see my dream get away from me. It really messed me up, my self esteem went to the ground and something inside of me broke and this last year I really did my best to fix myself… I guess it was kind of my birthday present to myself. I didn’t tell anyone because I felt it was something I had to do on my own and in the process I learned a lot.
I first approached the problem from the physical perspective, I started doing exercise again; mostly running and eating healthier. Then I went to the chiropractic to fix my back and part of my shoulder. This made me feel better physically, but inside I was still shattered. That’s when I started seeing things from a different point of view: I was still so broken because I wasn’t paying attention to the right things. I was wasting my energy on people that wasn’t worth it or just wasting it trying to make the people I love happy and that’s cool but for once in my life I needed to think about myself and that’s when everything really changed for me.
I started meditating and got really focused on myself; I started feeling much more connected to myself. I didn’t realice how external to my own body I felt and how much I stopped caring about it. I found the feelings I got bottled inside me and started working on picking up the pieces and putting myself together. I even lost 5kg in the process! This was still not the biggest lesson I learned by forced, how could I’ve known? I guess we have to make mistakes once in a while. I stopped putting that much attention in my personal relationships without even noticing it. I am so grateful to all those friends that were always by my side even when I wasn’t really there for them. I am also grateful to the people who left, because of them I learned my last and most important lesson: balance.
The moment it really hit me was when I was leaving Europe after spending time with my now ex girlfriend who is currently studying abroad. I never really focused on our relationship during the time I was there and as a result I lost the most important person in my life at the time. I was broke into pieces again. I’m still picking them up, but I feel a lot better knowing that I learned the importance of balancing multiple parts of my life. Balance becomes even more important when you stop focusing on parts of your life that have such a high priority.
Finally, without my friends I would’t be feeling as strong as I do right now, I might even still be in my bed, broken, because of what I lost, but I gained even more: Multiple lessons, I finally found myself in all those pieces of the past and I know that I can count on my friend as much as they can count in me. I know the future will be better and soon, I’ll finally be whole again.
