Good afternoon, I turned 20 yesterday, yay! Here is my birthday present to you all:
Majority of what I was going to write in the log is in the video, so this is more of a reflection on turning 20 and how I feel about my tween and teen years. I still cannot fathom I am 20, and I do not think a lot of people can either, but that's just how time goes. Just one more year until the great Las Vegas bender, eh 😂. I remember when birthdays were exciting, but now it's like "the clock is ticking man, you need to get your life together." Being 20 is weird, you are not a teenager anymore, but still not quite an adult, let alone a man. What does it mean to be a man? I'll let *Shia Labeouf* talk on that:
Going through a 1/5th life crisis right now, and I am terrified. Last week, I was a little-bit more hopeful and optimistic of entering the "prime of my life" being 20, but Week 2 drained all of that out from me. With syllabus week 1 being over, Week 2 gave me the biggest preview of what the next 8 weeks or pretty much my life could be; stress, work, deadlines, and glimpses of joy or happiness. The "what do I get to do today?" mindset has definitely gone out the window, and the mundane, student-job cycle has definitely taken over. I found myself quoting and re-playing this clip from *Fight Club* more times in my head then I should:
**"Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives"** Turning a new decade or just getting older is not as exciting as it used to be (I can not speak for 21 though because I know a Vegas bender will make me forget about my issues or could invite new ones 😂). I can not remember the last time I was genuinely excited about my birthday and what turning my age entails. Now I treat my birthday as any other day, and it just serves to remind me of how much I did not do in the previous year of my life. It completely factors out all the cool things I did do and focuses on what I did not do. I am pretty much validation of the famous cliché saying, *"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do."* Regrets I have a lot of them, but it is just proof of my growth and that was not in God's best interest for me. The catch is it's so convenient to say things like what I just said, "It was not in God's best interest in me," you or I at least do not even believe it yourself. You just have to trust, and it is a long process that you walk towards every day. The great tragedy of life is that it has to be lived forward, but only makes sense in reverse. 19 was the most important year of my life. I feel like I have grown so much mentally and spiritually as person, but I am uncertain if I was in a better safe now turning 20 then I was turning 19. With the insufferable excruciating heatwave during the week, I spent a lot of the time in my dorm reflecting on the past decade of my life, and evaluating if I really made the most of it. Crossing into the threshold of 20 means leaving those wonder tween and confusing teenage years behind, and I was not ready for it, but I do not get to choose my time or when I am ready. Time waits for no one. A question that popped up or keeps recurring to me is *"would my 10-year-old self be proud of me?"* it is not a definitive yes or no coming from me, but what I did land on is that my 10-year-old self would probably give myself a hug. 10-year-old was definitely nicer to me than I am now. I was shy (still am 😅), but curious, full of wonder, and could not wait to grow up. Constantly living in the future, asking for a new story for myself, but still kind of somewhat enjoying who I was currently. I say the last part because not to sound self-conceited I always knew I was different and stuck out from the crowd. That low self-esteem and judgment has always been with me from the jump. I started out in SPED, ESL, and speech therapy (so much for that) classes because I was extremely shy and refused to talk. If we keeping it buck, I have always been shy, but I never knew I had a problem speaking until I got to school. Having a lisp definitely amplified my shyness and the speech therapy lessons did not help remove my lisp or make me feel any better going back to the classroom. I could not say my "s" or "t" sounds and having other kids provoke you into saying "she sells seashells by the seashore," "three-thirty" (can not believe that one always got me) or even my own name without it saying botched, sure does not feel good man. It sounds like I am dragging this because it just petty little teases, but I do believe this was pivotal because that's when I developed the habit of the need to apologize for being myself. When I misspeak my name and people hear "Christan" or "Christian" I am always quick to apologize for my lisp and correct them (I can't tell people I am "tlee" off rip 😂). "Can not wait to grow up" became my identity because holding onto a vision or a better version of myself where I was confident, able to speak, having friends come naturally, and even being taller physically was better than being me in the present. I would present myself as way older than I was, thinking people would take me seriously or like me more. It got me nowhere and won me nothing. I was performing for different crowds, I couldn’t relate to people my age, I came off a little edgy, and I was still too young for the older crowd. I was stuck between rooms having people never really know me and me never really knowing myself in my teen years. Having a very personal event occur right before becoming a teenager did not help either. You never expect that sort of thing to happen, and that is probably where the over-thinker in me was born. Going through that sucked and suddenly seeing all these people be there for you was beautiful, but also disheartening. They would not be there if said event did not happen and in my head I would think people only cared about me or saw me as worth keeping around is because they felt bad for me and pitied me. I did not like that and did not want people to feel that way about me. Then, COVID happened, everybody went through it so not going into it, and before I knew it I was starting high school and my brothers were no longer in the house. High school was so tough for me, I left in two years. It's funny because everything was peaches and cream, I was striving academically and athletically; 4.0 GPA, class rank #1, AAA hockey, and was probably in the best shape of my life, but I still struggled nevertheless. I think because everything seemed so good I tried my best to keep up the illusion and neglected the real me because I thought people respected me, thought highly of me, and that way better than people feeling bad for me. It was lonely though, I avoided real relationships and friendships, confused self-improvement with perfection and independence with isolation. Naturally the illusion of excellence came down, and I failed to realize that people did not care about me or what I did in a good way. I came to that realization in a bad way where I tried to prove my worth everywhere in attempt to make people care about me and what I did. This got me nowhere and was exhausting. I lost the joy in the things that I used to love like hockey. I was playing to chase the next level rather than play because it was fun. Being washed and looking back now, I had more fun off the ice ever did I have on the ice. Going to the rink gave me friends, a community, something to distract me from how lonely I really was, and a place where I was loved by others besides my family. I think I was only chasing the next level of hockey just to give me an excuse to keep showing up to the rink and talk or relate to my boys that are miles above me in skill. Like this quote I saw in Shibuya, I shared in my Kyoto reflection: ![real](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczPmcfGytoiugBMVqLBE7kpsePemYMubbmTe8SkAS-lPvZmrbCU7HCvDm1mxFXkqnQqxtqI9qEMWvjE95TGx0X4sRJZMayhZo5dSZ7ZcdCT_ceQO0TqkqREG174fRoMLnovJsNS8R6aeEuRof6ixTLFYzg=w1128-h1504-s-no-gm?authuser=0) When I look back, my life follows *Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages* almost exactly. ![](https://www.simplypsychology.org/wp-content/uploads/psychosocial-stages-1-1024x576.png) Stage five is identity versus role confusion, and I spent it wearing a role instead of sitting with the real me and figuring out who I was. I robbed myself of my teenage years, never really got to be a teenager, I didn’t even hit puberty or a growth spurt 😂. I was scared and just anxious about me, how others perceived me, and essentially everything. One of my favorite *Drake* lyric and song is *Look What You've Done*, the line: **"Just another kid going through life, so worried that he won't be accpeted."** Stage six is intimacy versus isolation, where you have to let someone see the real you. That’s the one I’m currently in. Even when I was working with my shrink earlier this year, I was still holding up a mask, and scared to admit that I was struggling. Talking with the shrink was like my favorite scene from *Good Will Hunting*:
I think one of my first sessions my shrink called me out on my automatic negative thoughts, and it was like this scene:
As a boarder-line *cinephile* and somewhat self-intellectualist (I like to believe 😂), I believe everybody should watch *Fight Club* and *Good Will Hunting*. Those films are vital in understanding ones self and what you make of "life." I need to reach back out to my shrink, but I am having trouble trying to work it in my schedule. I do not want to self-diagnose, but I believe I may have **Alexithymia**. It's a neuropsychological phenomenon where it is difficult for an individual to process or describe emotions. It's like I know what I want to say, but it does not come out, or it is incoherent verbal diarrhea. If I were to describe it in my own words it's like my mind thinks it's protecting my heart or soul by preventing me from saying or expressing my emotions and what I want to say, but in reality it's hurting me. Alexithymia shows up on camera, where I freeze, instead of just talking, and on these log entries that should be quick to write, but oftentimes takes me hours because I have difficulty putting my feelings to words. It shows up the worst during tough conversions, where I can’t express my authentic self or my vulnerabilities. I’m tired of being me. I want to change, but I’m not sure, I want to be saved, and I know how that sounds. Part of me believes there’s a plan and that I’m supposed to trust it. The other part is stubborn and wants to keep running the show myself, even though I can see it isn’t working. Most days those two argue the whole time and keep me up way too late at night. It's essentially this Theo Von clip (watch until 52:50):
**"Do I want to be healed?"** I don’t have a neat ending for this, and I’m okay with that for now. What I do know is that I am tired of myself and I don’t want to be alone anymore. Going to go watch football some football and play hockey tonight, so hopefully next week is better. As always stay safe, healthy, and Godspeed! See you next week!