Yeah, it took me a while to get to this point, but I’m here now, and I am so grateful. It’s hard to walk away from the old and familiar, but there came a point when I had to choose to either stay uncomfortable where I was or deal with the discomfort of trying something new. I chose the new. I equate outgrowing situations and people with outgrowing clothes; eventually, you have to change your wardrobe if you want to feel better.
Turning over a new leaf in life can take great effort. For me, I naturally mourned the old, but ultimately came to accept that things needed to change for my own well-being. It definitely wasn’t easy to change, and it came with an overwhelming amount of growing pains. Walking away from the known into the unknown can be scary and filled with uncertainties, but for me, it came down to one thing: survival. I had to change.
In one particular situation, the change didn’t happen suddenly for me; there were many steps involved. The first thing that I had to acknowledge that needed to change was my way of thinking. In particular, did I want to stay in a situation where I wasn’t being respected or acknowledged? Nope. No matter how much love I had for the familiarity of it all, it wasn’t worth my peace of mind, self-esteem, or overall well-being. So I had to take action to improve the situation and leave it completely.
The second thing that changed for me during my turning over a new leaf phase was my attitude. I was faced with a lot of pressure, externally and internally, to stay where I was. I think the thing that helped me the most during this stage was realizing and knowing my own self-worth. I’ve learned that if you can’t love yourself first, you can’t hold other people accountable for not loving you either. That was a deep, but necessary, lesson I had to learn.
The third and final thing I changed was my behavior. No longer could I do the same things that I used to do when I turned over a new leaf. I had to work on disciplining myself not to engage with the old, even during the most tempting times to do so. Because there was a lot of waiting for the new to enter my life, it was hard not to return to the things that I once knew. The waiting was the most infuriating part. I wanted something fresh and new to enter my life, but I had to wait to make sure I didn’t just jump right back into the same scenario I had left behind. Looking back on it now, this was also the most fruitful time because I voluntarily learned new things, like what I wanted and what I needed moving forward.
I’m oversimplifying my change process, but those were the steps I basically encountered when turning over a new leaf. Then, finally, came change. After much time, effort, and energy spent, I am now in the new chapter of my life, and I’m living it page by page, one day at a time. Life really is like a book. The previous chapters of life are necessary for character development and the overall story, but once it’s time for a chapter to end, you naturally move forward to the next. In my book, this is the part where I can say that for a long time, I feel freer than I’ve ever been. I still have a ways to go, but I’m happy to be here.