Timing is Everything
Running the risk of sounding incredibly old… how is it 2025 already? I refuse to believe time is real. And yet, it has this nasty habit of getting away from me entirely. We are practically half-way through January and I am not entirely sure what the tone of this year is yet. A little bit of grief? Sure. A touch of existential dread? Naturally. Did I spend the first full moon up all night sobbing my eyes out? You bet.
I have been spending the last couple of months really trying to reconnect with myself. Unfortunately, this means coming face to face with some of the not so great parts of yourself. Oh boy, do I have some stuff to work on! And much like Taylor Swift, I (have to) do it with a broken heart. I have always been a naturally anxious person, but an OCD diagnosis when I was a teen helped explain some of that away. However, this tendency for anxiety has found its way into my friendships and relationships. (Yikes!) Anxious attachment is really not for the weak. For me it can show up as not eating or not sleeping, panic attacks, and that horrible feeling in your stomach that won’t go away (evil butterflies, if you will).
Dear Reader, I hope at this point I have not scared you off with my extreme vulnerability yet. There is a point to all of this! Part of me delving into my anxious attachment has helped me realize how much I seek out reassurance from those around me, and how often times I need it immediately. And with this vulnerability I will say, it has given me a lot of freedom to analyze why I seek reassurance out so deeply. I am so scared of the “bad” happening that I fixate on it until it actually happens. (Oops!)
But with this comes an important lesson. Anxious attachment only allows me to see one tree in the forest; learning to take a step back and give myself reassurance helps me see the bigger picture at play. As I have worked on this, I understand more of those who aren’t wired like me. Some people in my life are people who are more “avoidantly attached.” In a situation where I might seek an answer or assurance, they seek introspection and isolation. Where I might pull, they might push. When I want it now, they want it later. I used to carry a lot of anger and frustration surrounding this instead of seeking to understand what might make someone wired that way. One is not better than the other, but if we are to have any hope in this world, we ought to seek to understand each other. And if we’re lucky enough, we align the timing of when we have learned how to implement our understanding of someone else’s wiring.
Growing is hard. Growing because something negative has happened is harder. For me, I had this one week that served as a catalyst for this self-analysis. No details here but, trust me, it was a week from hell; three horrible things happened back-to-back. I felt like I couldn’t catch a break! Why me? Why now? Why in this way? Time has given me the gift of reflecting that if that all did not happen in the way and timing it did, I may not have been pushed to work on myself in this way. Yeah, it really sucked. But it highlighted where I have yet to grow as an individual and as a young woman.
Maybe naively, I have decided to have faith that it will all work out. I used to say “I hope it all works out.” But hope for me requires reassurance. Faith is trust. Faith is saying that without reassurance or physical evidence that you believe in something. I have faith in things working out in the time that they’re supposed to.
Who knows when that will be, but I know I’ll be ready to handle it with a better version of myself. Whenever it is, I have faith that the timing will be right.
Xo,
Madeleine