The Power of Our Own Perception

My hometown lost two lovely, bright-smiled and happy-on-the-surface, late-20’s ladies within a few days of each other recently; one a suicide, the other, a heroin overdose. They were friends with each other and all of us; it was imaginably awful to begin to understand.

A juxtaposition has been on my mind now for days — and it’s the startling reality of how happy sad can really look. It’s been discussed over teary phone calls with my parents, over too many brunch mimosas with my fiancé, with friends that know that life is a bitch, but totally worth it — how do you see sadness?

And that thought parlays into my own life, my personal power struggle with myself and my career; the burning question always in my mind Why doesn’t it feel good to get everything you’ve always wanted? And leads back to the beginning of my own ‘grown-up’ story:

Four years ago, at 24, I was let go from my second job in New York City, this time a snobbish, Real-Housewives-esque, style start-up, just two days after I received devastating news that a best friend had died of complications of a heart condition.

My earth was shattered. Just a year and a month into my adventure outside of my bucolic bubble, there I was again: no job with just shy of enough experience to be hired for what I was already qualified and ready to do. So, I did what I thought I should, I became severely depressed.

At the time, I had a shit roommate, literally, a dirty, narcissistic scum ball, that we’ll refer to now as a learning experience. At that time, when tensions were high in my apartment, I would sleep at my boyfriend’s cramped apartment every night; sleeping all day, waking up just to check in with him to keep up my rouse.

For nearly a year, that was my life; my sad, sorrowful existence. With the help of Allen Watt’s ‘Eastern Wisdom Modern Life,’ I slowly climbed my way out of my own darkness, and in the years since, I became a beloved elite private-school nanny for two exhausting years while building what is now, my very own creative consultancy.

With my foundation laid, I’ll get back to the point. I’m in the future, one that I never even dreamed could be so possibly lovely; a life I didn’t expect would be so sweet. With a successful career; incredible fiancé and a bright existence for my foreseeable life, how could I still feel struggle?

What if I said I wasn’t happy; are we allowed to do that? To say it out loud for all to hear, what already plays in my head:

“Hello, hey, yes, you… see me — the girl over here with everything going for her? Yes, down to the birthday-gifted rose gold Burberry watch to match the new rose gold engagement ring — me! I’m an illusion, an ideal, but I really don’t feel real at all.” ?

I’m the girl that lives vicariously through work friends and ‘frenemies,’ aquintances and the like on Facebook and Instagram— I’m that hypocrite that, if I was really being honest, is way too hard on herself for professing to be a woman so new age conscious about how we’re viewed in society.

But what I’ve uncovered, at least personally, is that happiness is overrated. And dare I say it, even settling. If you ‘become happy,’ what excitement lives beyond it — what sentiment is the new aspirational attribute that we must conquer to continue to live the life we tell ourselves we want?

And then there’s the greatest danger, if we do believe so strongly in happy, and it doesn’t happen tomorrow… can we make it through another day?

Friends look at my carefully self-selected #officelife snaps of my beautiful at-home desk, my mid-day lunch dates with like-employed creative friends, and let me tell you, it looks pretty fucking fun. But what they don’t see is the insecurity — the one that haunts me both personally and professionally freelancing; I’m alone, all day, every day, and I’m the only one that can make this work.

The extinguished fires of two friends’ lives filled with promise remind me of that pressure — whether self-inflicted, career-driven, or brought on by those we love. Life, especially for young women, is fucking hard. And until we acknowledge what The Stones told our parents, that what you want isn’t necessarily what you need, we’ll continue to drown ourselves in sorrow.

To all the ladies, working hard to make the life they thought they wanted, remember the goal is to find contentment in your personal journey. This is your experience, the only one you’ve got; don’t silently suffer by finding competition where there is none — just love yourself and others will too.

And reach out to your friends, because if you see or smell smoke, there’s almost-assuredly something to fear. Many of us walk dangerously close to the edge of the easiest way to kill yourself. It’s called self-doubt. Without reservation, life doesn’t always end in literal death; surviving doesn’t always mean living; we need eachother.

I will acquiesce that there is a balance possible for all of us; one not based on our perception of happiness, but rather on wholeness. Beginning with building an internal fire of self-love, one that, all women must promise, to ourselves and each other, we’ll never let burn out.