Shout Out to the Break-Up!

2009 started off horribly for me. I ended a relationship, was broke all the time, my diet was poor, lost a lot of hair. You name it! Every move I made was the wrong one. I won’t get into the reason why the relationship ended (at least not now), but just know I was very depressed around that time. I felt like everything in my life was going downhill and I lost trust in a lot of individuals. I was hurting inside. Some people thought I was overreacting, which made it hard for me to talk to about it. Eventually I realized that break up was the BEST thing to ever happen to me. The quote: “You don’t know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have”, is so true. I had no choice but to wipe the tears away from my eyes, hold my head up, and stick my chest out. I knew it was time for me to stop feeling sorry for myself and get my life on track.

Ever since I was a kid, I had the desire to move to New York City. I knew St. Louis (my birthplace) was not the place for me. In fact, I remember asking my mom if she could take me to New York so that I could be on Sesame Street. The break up was painful, but it gave me a feeling of freedom I didn’t have before. One day, I didn’t feel like going into to work so I just stayed in bed. I decided that day as I stared at the ceiling, “I’m definitely leaving St. Louis, I’m definitely leaving now”. People thought I was leaving STL to run away from my problems, but they couldn’t have been more wrong. I left because I had a strong desire to do so, and I knew the move was long overdue. Originally, I planned to move to Las Vegas because I have an uncle there. But my heart was set on New York City. Even my mom said, “Vegas is nice and all, but I see you in New York”.

Long story short, I listened to my mom and followed my heart. I moved to New York City as a 28th birthday present to myself. I would like to get into every single detail on how I ended up here, but I’ve already written quite a bit. I will tell you this though….everything fell into place as soon as I arrived at Penn Station. I stepped out on faith and pursued my inner most desire. I figured I had absolutely NOTHING to lose. The only way I was going to fail was if I believed I was going to fail. During my healing process I learned I could get what I wanted by actually believing I deserved it, and feeling good about it. I believed I deserved to live in this city. I felt good about it. I imagined myself doing something that has to do with photography and having my own apartment (which to many is almost impossible in NYC). People doubted me, said I was way too timid to live in such a cutthroat city. “Oh she will be running back to St. Louis in no time!”, they said. These were goals I had, and I didn’t allow negativity to come in and stop me from accomplishing them. Getting to the point where I believed good things would happen for me was difficult at first. In the beginning I kept saying “my life sucks”, and my life kept “sucking” until I stopped thinking so negatively. I started loving myself too much to keep ruining my life with unhealthy thoughts.

So what started off as the worst year of my life, ended up being so far the best and most important year of my life. 2009 was the year I learned how strong I was, how important believing is, and how to really enjoy life. I believed I would get a job related to photography and I did. I believed I would get my own apartment, and after living with roommates (and a plastic fork situation we won’t talk about) I got that too. Don't think I didn't struggle, because I did. At one point I had to sleep in a car, but we won't talk about that either *wince*. Sometimes we have to go through bad, horrible things to really appreciate the great things that are to come. I’m genuinely happy now for the first time ever in all of my 28 years of living. I’m not saying it takes moving to another state to be happy. However when you know your inner most desires, actually believe you deserve them, and step out on faith…you can’t go wrong. In my opinion, those are the ingredients to happiness. We all want to be happy right?