Corinne DeCost

(TW: Suicidal thoughts)

I spent my entire childhood living in the future. By 9, I had picked the area I wanted to go to college. By 15, I knew where I wanted to get married. By 18, I was in school and had to figure out the rest of my life. I was always okay with my plans changing along the way, but that’s what I’ve always done and been good at doing.

I’ve spent the past 3 years being unable to give up pieces of the past.

Getting a grip on the fact that my parents got divorced when I was 2, and my father, as much as I wanted him to be, would never be as close to me as a father who was around every day of my childhood. Dealing with the severe depression and anxiety that had been building up for years without my realization. Allowing myself to move on after romantic relationships have ended and bitterly regretting losing friends along the way.

I’m 22 now.

I thought when I was finishing school, that all I would be able to do was just to let go of my past burdens and just burst into adulthood, this thing I had worked for my whole life. And it sucked.

I spent most of my time planning for the biggest disappointment of my life thus far: adulthood.

And since I’ve gotten to adulthood, all I can do is focus on my regrets from the past. Why did he have to go? Why wasn’t I better?

I also started to focus on what I was looking forward to. Certainly not just getting up for work again the next morning. Children? Not for at least 10 years. A wedding? No thanks. A promotion? Well I had just been hired. A raise? I’m not kidding anyone, I’m just happy to be employed. What else is there? Where I’m moving when I retire? Nursing homes?…Death? I worried that there was nothing left for me to be excited about for a while.

Was death just – a better place to be? Was it the end goal? Would I be excited about what was to come when I finally crossed the finish line? After thinking about death for a while, I wasn’t that afraid of it anymore. Looking over my life, I do not have much I was proud of. I had left school, and had become an ordinary person. I have overcome more personal trauma than I would ever wish on my worst enemies with nothing to show for it. If death was my next goal, why was I waiting?

Does that make any sense? I don’t know if it does to me now.

Because now – is..now.

I don’t know if I’ve ever lived a day of my life in the present.

I didn’t enjoy anything I was having, because what I had could never be enough. There was never any crying, because it wasn’t worth the hassle of fixing my eyeliner.

I don’t know what today means. I don’t know what it’s like to not be planning for something. I don’t know how to enjoy a moment. But for now, I am trying. Art, yoga, time alone at night, blogging. Soft reflecting.

I’m going to start caring about now.