Feel Like You’re Watching Your Best Years Pass You By? Sigh..

Hey guys

If you are feeling down about where you are in life, I just wanted to share this. Maybe you’ll find a bit of hope you can hold onto.

In my mid-twenties, there was a time I reflected on my life as I was living it.

The first era: little me (toddler years)

My childhood started off great, the part I can barely remember lol. Then when I was 4 or 5, I have this vivid memory of me standing at the door, arms and legs stretched wide like a cross, my little body barricading the door to stop my mom from leaving while my parents were in the middle of an intense argument. She picked me up and moved me out of the way. There was a well of tears and pain behind her eyes. Then she took her bags and continued on her way out, leaving me, my dad, and my older sister, who was 8 at the time. Later I would learn that she didn’t leave because she wanted to. Things are complicated, and it’s something I only came to understand when I was older.

The next era: childhood me

So she left, and my dad, who was the best dad, probably just not the greatest husband but love him down, remarried, got divorced, and remarried again. The next few years of my life were filled with abuse at the hands of my stepmother. Between ages 5 and 12, I learned a lot of pain and formed a lot of insecurities as my young mind tried its best to get through that traumatizing childhood.

The next era: preteen me

Dad fell sick, became unemployed for years, and we were poor, so this part of life, early adolescence, was poverty. My stepmother was no longer around, and at least I had the love of my dad and my siblings. Together we would leave the house and walk around the neighborhood, searching the ground for any cents we could find to buy bread for dinner. It was dark times, literally. We couldn’t afford electricity and there were cold showers lol, but at least we had a home. Being a foreigner didn’t make it any easier to make friends at school, so these were some of the loneliest years of my life.

The next era: late teen me

Late teens into young adulthood, college and uni era. I was reunited with my mom again. I glowed up physically and I finally had friends. Some of the best few years of my life.

The next era: early twenties me

Then came my early twenties. My dad died, I gained weight, and I fell into a deep depression. There were good times and blessings sprinkled in between. I got my dream job and my safe haven home. I tried several weight loss attempts, but I could never really wear what I truly wanted because I was plagued by body insecurities. It was sad, really. When I was younger, I couldn’t wear nice things because I was poor, and in my twenties, I couldn’t wear nice things because of my insecurities, different reasons, same restriction.

I spent most of that time cooped up in the house, working through insecurities, social anxiety, and depression. I only really left to go to work, buy groceries, visit family, or for the occasional friend’s birthday, where I never truly felt comfortable in my skin. So I stayed in the house, hiding and watching what I thought were “my best years” pass by. Stifled. It was truly a difficult time mentally.

And so, at that point in my mid-twenties, I looked at my life up until then, and it felt like mostly sad things with a few good moments in between. Then one day at church, the pastor mentioned a verse from the Bible, from the book of Haggai. It says, and I paraphrase, that the glory of the latter temple will be greater than the former. And the word on my heart was this: my latter will be greater than my former. My future will be greater than my past. And I said, God, show me how good it gets.

And that brings me to my current era

Truly living a life I love. We can get into that in blogs to come. But for anyone out there looking back on their life and feeling down, like it has been wasted on sadness, stress, and pain, like you have never really experienced true happiness, I want to offer hope and encouragement. It gets better. It will get better for you. I believe that for you.

And in a world with so much AI, not that it’s terrible, we still need some genuine, heartfelt human truths. So besides the occasional spellcheck and helpful functionality, these are sincere words from my heart for anyone who needed to hear this today.

To close, I’m wishing you a great night and better days, pal. You’ve got this. And stay tuned for the next blog, friend.

And if you’re currently in a season where social anxiety feels heavy and overwhelming, I created something for you. It’s called 'A Friend-in-Your-Pocket Guide to Social Anxiety'. A guide filled with the kind of support, perspective, and practical steps that helped me during my hardest moments so you don’t have to figure everything out alone.

You can explore it here 🤍https://safehavencornerstudio.com/a-friend-in-your-pocket-guide-to-social-anxiety.

TTFN

(ta-ta for now)