There have been certain points in life where nothing makes sense, everything is going wrong, and I decide I don’t want to handle it anymore. I would rather throw in the towel, burrowing deep under my covers, binging This is Us, and devouring a pint of Halo Top. The funny thing is that nothing, by definition, tragic or overly dramatic is happening at any of these points. I am just seriously being wrecked by life. To make the matters worse I’ll be the first, or maybe third to admit that I am not the best at handling myself when I am overwhelmed. When life treats me like a punching bag, I often draw myself into a protective bubble, pushing my friends away, and sleeping A LOT. I consciously realize how unhealthy this is, and I have pushed friends so far away in these moments of seclusion that they haven’t come back. However, “the human condition requires a bit anesthesia,” and for me that comes in the form of ice cream, coffee, and cutting off the human contact that normally keeps me going. NOTE: that quote is from Bohemian Rhapsody, as Freddie Mercury explains away the drugs and alcohol littering his living room and successfully pushes away the love of his life once again. I do not believe I have yet pushed away the love of my life, but God only knows. But to get back on topic, in these moments when I feel suffocated, I realize I come back stronger. While I may not see these changes coming whilst midst the hurricane, I can look back on them as defining moments in my life, where just a bit of me changes for the better, and over the last two years, I feel I’ve become an entirely different person. There are some significant lessons I have learned through these times of hardship and three in particular come to mind now. The first silver lining of this seemingly crippling sense of affliction is that I have learned and found true friendship. I have surrounded myself with people who lift me up, refusing to let me wallow in my self-pity and pulling me out from under my purple comforter that I would have happily stayed under for weeks on end. It’s not that the friends in the past didn’t try to do the same but rather that I was not at a place of maturity to accept it. A fact that I regret quite often. I have to remember that this maturity came out of loss. Even if lessons that life teaches me seem harsh, I always know God is working behind the scenes as I begin to become the person He always planned for me to be. The second life lesson learned is that life truly does go on. This one seems sort of obvious I realize, but it took extreme lengths for me to truly understand this simple concept. One friend last year had to reassure me approximately 252 times that, “it will all get better soon”, and another friend this year told me countless times, “don’t worry about it.” Despite my default response of,“I can’t do that,” he somehow swayed my belief in myself so that now I know I can in fact do that. The third moral of the story, ‘Emma’s journey through early adulthood’, is a somewhat harsh lesson in boundaries. This word is quite new to me honestly, and its definition is one I’ve come to build different relationships around within the last few months. I have become a firm believer in honesty and transparency, and so now, I will describe how difficult it can be creating healthy boundaries with different people. Despite what I thought in August, it is not a one and done kind of thing. This thin line, margin of faith, demilitarized zone is one that often has to be placed and replaced many times and discussed over and again. While this may be because I have a hard time setting parameters for myself, I have come to realize it is because as friendship changes so does the framework. Let me try and paint a picture. When walking through your local Hobby Lobby, you see many many different kinds of frames between the isles of hanging flowers and cutesy mugs. There are frames of red, blue, and green; frames that fit wallet sized pictures and others to take up a whole living room wall; frames made of all kinds of woods or metals. When it comes down to it, no matter what frame you buy, it’s the same photo housed in each different frame. To bring this parallel full circle, you can have one friend, and while all the friendships around you remain the same, and you’re always doing the same things like talking for hours upon hours and shopping for groceries late at night, the frame that it fits in sometimes has to change. While one frame may cost more than another, sometimes you just know that it’s the perfect one to house your photo, and you will sacrifice, say, the comfort of knowing you can pay your rent bill that week just to have the frame that will make your picture all the more beautiful on your wall. I realize this is a stretch, but I really hope you’re able to see what I am trying to say. Friendships change, and they come and go, but some are worth being made uncomfortable in order to create boundaries to keep them healthy and beautiful. With each new difficult situation that I have encountered I have learned how to navigate rocky waters, my ship growing stronger after each voyage. I now know how to laugh through pain, when and how to step away from a toxic friendship, and that life moves on. And while I still find myself gasping for air sometimes, I fully know and accept that I am human, that I was created by a God much bigger than my problems, and that there is a joy in surrender.
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