Taking some time

Too much, or too little?

The basic evil is invariably a lack of genuine warmth and affection, A child can stand a great deal of what is often regarded as traumatic—such as sudden weaning, occasional beating, sex experiences—as long as inwardly he feels wanted and loved.

—Karen Horney, The Neurotic Personality of Our Time

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At 33 years of age life is moving fast, when all I want it to do is slow down. Between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies our collective and individual power, to choose.

And in this choice, lies our growth and our freedom.

I find myself squinting at Grade 12 College level chemistry, via an online learning course, the irony of being both too old and too young simultaneously not lost on me.

The D2L portal glows with another practice quiz about Stoichiometry and Electronegativity, as I wonder what reactions in my life await me next—my life’s trajectory a series of rises and falls, each valley turned to a peak, little higher than the last, but always deeper.

Or maybe that's just the kind of optimistic bullshit I tell myself at 2 AM when the science stops making sense.

My Facebook feed is a kaleidoscope of other people's triumphs.

Former classmates posting about their family photos, in homes they own, having careers they seem happy living; their corner offices, their perfect families, their perfect everything.

Meanwhile I'm here, trying to remember how to factor enough courage to wake up and go to work with my mother at the dental office she works, while I desperately try to get out of the hell hole I feel trapped in, surrounded by people who can’t help me, because I can’t even help myself.

Their lives seem filtered through Instagram's "Having Your Shit Together" preset, while mine feels perpetually stuck on "Work in Progress."

The tabs on my browser tell a story: "Ontario Universities Admission Requirements," "Mature Student Programs," "Alcoholics Anonymous Online Meetings," "Indeed.com," and "How to Convert GPA to Percentage Grades."

Each one a thread, me trying to reinvent myself to promised new beginnings, ending up taking to much work to keep going; chemistry to conquer, biology to battle, and the endless parade of mathematical concepts that feel like they're written in hieroglyphics.

My guitar sits in the corner, gathering dust like my writing ambitions: both were once lifelines—ways to transmute pain into something beautiful.

Now they feel like witnesses to my struggle, patient friends waiting for me to remember who I am.

Late at night, when the numbers swim off the screen and my eyes burn from staring at chemical equations, I write in my journal—the one place I still let myself be a writer.

I document this strange journey: a thirty-something struggling alcoholic, living with my parents and my spouse, barely making enough to afford things beyond food, wondering what the fuck happened, dreaming of what could be, wishing things were different,

It sounds absurd even as I write it.

But isn't that the nature of transformation?

To look ridiculous until suddenly you don't?

The psychology prerequisites mock me with their simplicity and their difficulty—simple because these are concepts I should have mastered half a lifetime ago, difficult because my brain feels like it's been rewired by years of self-medication and self-doubt.

Each solved equation is a small victory in a larger war against my own past, against the voice that says it's too late, against the siren song of bottles and bad decisions.

My writing, when it comes now, is different.

Less performative, more honest.

Sometimes I miss the flow of creative work, the feeling of worlds forming at my fingertips.

But there's something powerful in writing only for myself, in letting the words be as messy and unformed as this chrysalis stage of my life—to remember that beauty can exist even in imperfect moments.

Tomorrow, I'll wake up and do it all again.

I'll log into my courses, face down another set of problems, send out more job applications.

I'll try not to check social media, try not to count the days until I might start a real degree, try not to think about how far behind I am in this race nobody's actually running but me.

I'll remind myself that this pause in my writing career isn't an end but a redirect, that sometimes stepping back is the only way forward, that sobriety and sanity are prerequisites for any future worth having.

For now, though, I close my laptop and look at my reflection in the darkened screen.

Somewhere between the person I was and the person I'm becoming, there's this current version of me—trying, failing, trying again.

Not exactly lost, not quite found.

Just here, doing the work, one moment at a time.

In moments you struggle with, how do you love and understand yourself, transforming your challenges into stepping stones to greatness?