Reassure Me About My Future & Chill?

“When did this all get so real?” I asked a friend as I swished red wine around in my glass and sat in an uppity bar that had expensive art plastered on the walls instead of local band posters or days old spilled booze.

My friend laughed and took an extra large gulp of wine. See, he didn’t have an answer, and even after thinking about it, neither do I.

Life moves by so fast. It seems like I just moved my crap into my first college dorm, like I just sat in my first class, like I just got my first set of grades, like I just went to my first party. Like I just, like I just, like I just.

Back then (whenever that was exactly) I picked a major based on what I wanted to do, with little regard for how much money it would pay. I spurned tons of potential romantic partners because I could always “do better.” And while I always paid my bills, I spent a lot of money on clothes & shit and didn’t save as well as I could have.

And so I want to be reassured a little bit, and maybe you do too.

We made the right choices, or at the very least, we did the best we could with what we had. Life isn’t perfect, and neither is our decision-making, but we should trust ourselves. We were thrown into complicated situations filled with stress, drama, worry, anxiety, fear, and we came out alive. We did good.

We were right to follow our passions, our hearts, our guts. Maybe it was in choosing a major, maybe it was in a career change, maybe it was over-budget traveling, but we have all taken risks that didn’t always make logical sense. We have a need to satisfy something more profound, more essential, more ethereal than just our checkbook. We had to reach further, accomplish something that brought us happiness and fulfillment, and it will be worth it.

We did okay when it came to love and sex. Maybe we spent too much time with someone who wasn’t good for us, maybe we regret a one night stand, maybe we regret not taking more chances and not having more hookups. But we did okay.

And we’ve f*cked up sometimes. I’ve had more majors and minor combinations than boyfriends. I’ve ditched studying to reinforce my social life, and I’ve run away from romance because I am afraid. But even on the worst day it’s okay. I am okay. We are okay.

You are okay.

And when its not our worst day, we truly shine. We shine because we dare to live out-loud, we dare to live vibrantly, we dare to live.

And so we should reassure ourselves. Not that we are perfect, not that we don’t have room to grow, not that we don’t have apologies to give or mistakes to mend. We aren’t perfect. We do have room to grow. And if you are anything like me, we’ve hurt some people and owe some apologies. But we should reassure ourselves that we are valuable, that we are intelligent, and that our purposeful decisions have led us to a place where we can thrive.

We made it to this place. All of us, we made it here, to this exact place and time. And so now, altogether and just for a moment, we should reassure ourselves and chill.