The story of how I arrived to the lowest point started and ended with a relationship, but it also bookended a period of intense transformation and growth. As I have discovered, the process of self-recovery is brutal and pulls you from whatever illusion you have create of an unfulfilled and unexpressed life.

I poured my heart and soul into my work, my family, and the community I was helping to build through service work and friendship groups, but during this period, nothing I was doing was actually landing. It wasn’t just with me, either. I only realize in hindsight that it didn’t work because the foundation that I was building upon wasn’t a solid one for what I was trying to assemble, and I wasn’t living or expressing authentically– I was trying to keep from having to be real with what I was experiencing: a loss of a solid understanding of my own identity, and the face I showed to everyone else was what I hoped they’d see. I have come to understand that I wasn’t fooling anyone, and the discomfort was in the perception that I was hiding behind the mask I created.

Growing up meant that I had to look at my own failures and shortcomings. They added up more quickly than I ever anticipated– and that sent me spiralling for over a year. I’m only now starting to resurface from the series of blows to my personal and professional life. I built a life story around an idealized and downplayed version of how I truly feel compelled to express in terms of ideas, lifestyle, habits, and patterns of behaviour.

I suppose this could be a way of reclaiming a sense of identity through my words and through sharing my story, but I anticipate that I have a lot to learn as I move and learn how to define the terms going forward. I owe it to myself and to all that I wish to serve in this lifetime, because I often hear the words of Mary Oliver, echoed over and over, wearing a path in my brain:

“Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”