I guess a good start would be to give you a breakdown of the past year. In August of 2013, I left a secure job that paid more then the rent and promised a bright future, but drained me of all creativity and motivation. Independent film has always been a passion of mine, and since attending the Sundance Film Festival in 2011, I knew working for this organization was a dream I would never let go. I never expected it to come through this early in my career, but when I got the call and offer to join the special events team for the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, I had to hold back tears. They may have been from the happiness of achieving what seemed like an impossible dream or from the excitement of knowing it was the fuel I needed to get out of the rut my life was in, but either way, I knew it was the start of something.
This "rut" I refer to was not only from my professional state, but from my personal life too. Up until this point, the entire year of 2013 was a struggle. I had a live-in boyfriend who was one of the most-caring and loving men I had ever met, the kind of guy that your parents want for you. This made it even more difficult to accept the fact that I was unhappy. It was a problem I couldn't see myself out of. Usually when i'm faced with an issue in my life, I can weigh the pros and cons, make a plan, and find a solution. This was one I could not wrap my head around. The unhappiness in my career with my relationship together put me into tailspin.
I started seeing a counselor who asked me a lot of the questions I couldn't ask myself. One in particular, "What are you afraid of?" I was afraid of being alone and hurting someone who I truly cared about. (I think it's important to mention that I can be very stubborn and overly independent, so admitting I had an issue I couldn't see my way out of and asking for help was a feat in itself). There was just something different about this situation. It wasn't a decision that affected me, something that I needed to decide for myself. It was an action I had to take that impacted so many others.
The other question she had asked me was "What do you do for you?" There was very little I could answer to this. It stunned me to think I could only think of two categories of my day-to-day life: work and my boyfriend. Sure I had friends, I shopped, I went to the occasional Zumba class, but there were few other productive activities I was doing each day/week that didn't fit into one of those two categories. I have always enjoyed working. So much so, I often see it as a hobby. But my current job wasn't fitting that role. On the other side of the fence, the hermit life my boyfriend and I had built for ourselves full of Netflix, food and our dog, wasn't giving me what I needed. I've always been an explorer. With the comfort and lazy lifestyle we had built at home, I lost my spark that fueled me to explore.
Long story short, I moved to Park City, UT to fulfill my first contract with the Sundance Film Festival. I gave my relationship one last shot, thinking distance may give me some perspective and I may realize I missed our cave of comfort, but I didn't. We broke up 5 weeks later and I was thrown back into the arms of single-life. Somewhere I hadn't really been since I was 19.
This whole experience of new location, new job, new relationship status, gave me a feeling of beginning and I was felt like I was starting a new life. It was a weird perspective for me to be in as for the past few years, I thought I had found love and was on the road to marriage and my happily ever after. What I realized in this new position was that I needed to find myself first. I skipped over all of that, with a one track mind, focused on finding love and that life we are supposed to figure out. I was so focused on the future and planning for what was next, that I never stopped to live in the moment for myself. It all started to come to the surface when my counselor asked me what I did for me, leaving me speechless, and soon became my mission in this new life.
This blog is built to help me organize my thoughts on how to find myself first and share my reflections with others who may be experiencing a similar life journey. I'll iron out my insecurities, find new ways to feel more balanced and organized in my life, and work on securing the blocks that keep me standing. I'm rejecting the notion that "First Comes Love" and replacing it with "First Comes Me." Once I get the me, it should make the rest easier to follow, no? Let's try.
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