Angst and Questions

When I turned 30, it was like a switch had flipped. The angst of my 20s were gone. I knew who I was and stopped apologizing for it. The pesky “Who am I? What am I supposed to do with my life?” questions were answered.  Life was good and the future was brighter than ever before.

Photo with my besties from my 30th birthday party

Fast forward a few years and Bam! I feel like I’m back in the same place again. I am angsty and questioning my identity…again.  It feels different this time, but frustrating nonetheless. It’s like the ground I worked so hard to gain is slipping under my feet. Like I’m on a treadmill that’s going too fast and I keep falling back to the end of the belt, about to fall off.

There is a lot that factors into this season – some life changes. Some unmet expectations. Dreams that haven’t been fulfilled.  Sorry I won’t be more specific, but I’m honestly not comfortable voicing these tender things to the world. My guess is you can relate.  So what do we do? Is life just a continuous cycle of angst and questions, with a small bit of respite in the mix before the next wave knocks us down again?

I refuse to accept that.  I don’t want to live my life that way. While I want to continue growing and challenging myself (which is usually accompanied by angst and questions), I don’t want to revert backwards.  I spent some time journaling through these questions and reading through old journals. I needed to see where I had come from to help me figure out where I might be headed.  I found a lot of answers, which actually surprised me.  Some of my angst is a result of me not living out of who I am.  Things I learned about myself in the tumultuous 20s, I had let fall away. I’m not fighting hard enough to embrace those pieces of myself, to live as an integrated being.  It’s not a new identity crisis.  My identity hasn’t changed, I just haven’t been honoring myself.

I am still moving forward in the questions. I continue to change and evolve and grow. For this, I am thankful.  Some of the things I thought were settled in life are not. Some of the lessons I learned, I did not learn deep enough.  My faith somehow seems to make this process easier and more complicated at the same time. 

I write this in the process. I don’t have it figured out. I am still fighting. Still running on the treadmill.  My life is filled with moody days where I brood over my life and vent to my friends.  But this is the good stuff. While I loved the sense of conquest I felt at the beginning of my 30s, I was also a little stagnant in that time. Now, I know I am growing. And it is painful.  But I trust the process. I engage the fight. And I believe that I will come out stronger on the other side.

I hope the other side appears quickly. But until then, I’ll just keep pushing through.  Have you experienced a season like this in your life? Are you there now? I’d love to know I am not alone in this!