Things I needed to hear in my late twenties

I can't go back in time, but if I could...

I hit a low point at the age of 27.

There was no singular catastrophic event that pulled me down into that dark space—it was my life, and my interpretation of my life. It was the way I thought of myself. It was the way I spoke to myself.

It was everything.

I was reckoning with deeper awareness of what I needed out of life, while realizing how far away I felt from that life.

I had ADHD and I didn’t know it—but what I did know is that I was tired of being labeled lazy, dumb, incompetent, or messy for my shortcomings.

I wanted to build deeper friendships, but didn’t know how—I had yet to heal from a lot of the trust issues that I picked up from living life as a teenager with an intense desire for connection but a lack of discernment.

I had been out of school for too many years to have the hopeful naïveté of my young twenties, and I was too far away from the more successful years of my career to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I wish that 33-year-old Michell could go back in time and tell 27-year-old Michell that everything was going to be okay.

I wish I could tell him that it was okay to ask for help in imperfect ways. I wish he knew that it was safe to cry.

I wish he could give himself a chance to embrace life for the beautifully complicated mess that it always is, instead of waiting for the non-existent moment when everything felt “right.”

I wish that I could tell him that he wasn’t alone in what he was experiencing. I wish he could see that he would go on to alchemize all of his pain and find his purpose.

I can’t go back in time, but the thing is: 33-year old Michell still needs to hear these things. So i’ll tell him, too.