Julio's Musings

The story of Age 26 is a bit of a downer. That’s not to say that good things didn’t happen, because a few good things did, in fact, happen. However, Age 26 was mainly filled with a great deal of sadness. It’s a story I didn’t intend to write about, at least not for a very long while, but here I am writing it now anyway.

The most significant part of this story is the part where I completely broke as a person. I stopped functioning properly, constantly surrounded by intense emotions and no way to control them. I had been on the brink of breaking for roughly a year, but one day it all finally came crumbling down. I reached my breaking point and boy did I break! The reason for snapping is not really relevant to this story, but what is relevant is what happened after I snapped.

After the event that is irrelevant to this story happened, I went through roughly a month of trying to hold myself together. That failed so completely miserably. I did my best, but as some of my friends can tell you, it most definitely was not good enough. I got so lost in my mixed up emotions, so incredibly self-involved, I just could not fix myself. My friends could not fix me either. After a whole month of struggling, I realized (along with my friends) that I needed to get more professional help. And so, with that in mind, I went and got counseling.

It was a pretty easy decision to make when it all came down to it. There wasn’t anything else I could do but get help. I started to remind myself of how I was in high school, though this time I wasn’t in a suicidal state of mind at least. I definitely knew I didn’t want to get to that point! So I found a counselor to try out.

I was completely nervous that first session. I actually got lost finding the place! I kept walking down the streets in the Loop searching and not finding the proper building. Luckily, thanks to Google Maps, I was able to look and find the proper address. I had a number wrong in the address I had written down. Whoops! But, though a little late, I did manage to make it. And then I went through why I was there with my counselor. Thankfully, I felt completely comfortable and decided to really go through with more sessions. I spent three months working as hard as I could with this, and slowly all the anxiety, sadness, pain, insomnia, etc. started to go away. For the first time in more than half of 2010, I started to not feel so sad anymore. I was actually feeling better than I had in years! It was a very big surprise.

It was a good surprise. On my birthday last year, I remember making a wish that I could have the best year yet of my life. What followed could pretty much be described as the worst year of my life. But there’s more to it than that. Without going through everything I had gone through, I wouldn’t be where I am now. Here I am, a year after that wish, at a point of being okay with myself. It’s a feeling that I never thought would come.

A couple weeks ago I was with some friends discussing accomplishments for the year. They kept naming things off and I sat and wondered if I had accomplished anything. And now I see that I probably had my greatest personal accomplishment thus far in my still young life. I gained a sense of self worth again. I know you can’t really get a true sense of everything from what is written above, but believe me when I say that it was a very long and, at times, really brutal road. But here I am, typing this story, a much better man than I have ever been. Funny how life works sometimes.

And so, with Age 26 now gone, it’s time to wonder what Age 27 will bring. I had a whole list of goals to accomplish with this next year of life, but I’m throwing that list out. Age 27 will be the year of just seeing where life takes me. Here’s hoping this new path I’m on will lead to more happy things. But, if part of this path turns out to be a little bumpy or scary, I’m definitely ready for it. The only goal for Age 27 is to simply live out life and continue to be the best man I can possibly be.

Happy Birthday to me.