If being a worrywart were a profession, I’d be the CEO. Honestly, I can’t seem to function unless I’m thinking of some impossibly unforeseeable tragedy that is potentially looming around the corner. Right now, as it stands, I should be super duper happy and excited about life. I am, really, but also my psychotic brain is telling me “dude, don’t get too excited, Mt. Everest could come crumbling down on someone you love”. Ok that is a minor exaggeration but seriously, I’m a waiting for the shoe to drop kind of girl. I don’t mean to be but it is what it is.

I wasn’t always this nuts, I swear. I was actually a pretty happy-go-lucky type person until what I like to call the “2008 debacle” occurred. At 18, I suddenly lost both my maternal grandparents within 6 months of each other, my parents were going through a financial crisis, and going to school in LA was taking its toll on me. So what’s a girl to do when her pretty sweet life is turned all the way upside down? The answer simply, is to just shut down. I mean turn your feelings off, live like a robot, and just exist, shut down. I spent the next few years just going through the motions and surviving instead of fully enjoying my life. Also food become my BFF, well carbs/sweets/ etc., that is.

It wasn’t until my mom found me in the laundry room with a Dutch apple pie (the best pie in the world I might add), watching The O.C. on my laptop at 5 in the morning that my parents decided I was going to go to therapy. I’ll admit my first go with it, I wasn’t in the sharing mood, but it did slightly give me a wake up call as to the fact that I wasn’t being myself. To be completely honest, it took me about 2 years to kind of start waking up from my gray life that I’d grown accustomed to. 6 years after the fact, I can proudly say I’m “seeing in color” once again. However, anxiety is still a close friend of mine.

After leaving corporate slavery and doing my own thing, I cannot think of a better transition for me. I absolutely am enjoying where I’m at in this point in time. My issue is that from time to time, I get nervous about being happy, because the last time I was truly content, my world came crashing down. So how does one go back out into the world knowing that bad things can happen at anytime? Well according to my parents, you do it one day at a time, which is some pretty sound advice. I can’t live according to the fear of things that might happen. Furthermore even if bad things do happen, me worrying about it is not going to change the outcome. So I’m choosing to try and take the good with the bad. Life is a tragically beautiful thing, so it is important to cherish the moments that you have. Ok, now that my neurosis has subsided for the moment, I probably should get back to writing some articles. Who knew that being a freelance writer meant that you actually have to do work? 😉