A Friday afternoon roller coaster

There have been a lot of moments this summer where I have stood at my desk on the verge of tears. I have a few friends with the misconception I am very put together. I want to be very clear, just because I have gotten a lucky break at an incredible company I am legally an adult, I have so many days where I have no idea what I am doing. Honestly I think none of us know what we are doing, and this little transcribed freak out is an example of how I am attempting to come to peace with this fact.

I wrote this on a Friday afternoon, after a long couple of days, feeling like an absolute fraud.

In this moment, I don’t know what I am doing and I couldn’t tell you why I am here. My anxiety has twisted my stomach in horrific knots. Failure is not an option. Not that it was an option in school, but to some degree it was. I could take a horrible grade on something if it was impossible or taking too much of my time. At my desk, though, I am given a task, and it needs to be done. No other options. No F’s. The company is paying me to live in Copenhagen and I can’t just say, I’m sorry, I tried really hard, this just isn’t working. I signed up for this.

This data is staring at me, spitting on my soul, my confidence, my slim inkling that I am becoming an adult. I can’t get past this stupid map. Every day I leave work thinking, tomorrow is the day, this will be done. Every day I get to work, realize something is horrifically wrong and again scrap all of my work. I want to put my face in a cheese grater.

I’m an adult, I tell myself. DON’T cry at your desk. Push through. Find your extra gear.

The last two weeks have been this same routine every day. I am on a rollercoaster of breakthroughs and crushing defeats. I am writing this post from the trough of a defeat, but I am certain in an hour I will be riding high again (hopefully for the last time)

If I had any sort of emotional logic, I would stop hurting myself like this. How I am able to get so excited when things start going moderately right will never cease to amaze me. It is a blessing. I might have started writing this to talk myself down, to tell myself to stop doing this every day, multiple times a day. Honestly thought, who am I kidding, this is who I am. No amount of logic will keep me from feeling enthusiastic about my progress no matter how small.

In a professional sense, I have learned a lot from my mistakes in the past summer, in an emotional sense, I have learned a lot as well, but I intend on changing NOTHING.

Maybe there are some painfully blind optimists out there that know what I am talking about. Maybe I am just mistaking optimism for my naïve nature. Maybe I will never be sure. Today, though, I choose the rollercoaster. I choose happiness and an open heart ready to be stabbed and completely destroyed in a couple of hours. When I wake up tomorrow, or maybe the next day, I know it will be okay. For that I am so thankful. And suddenly, a couple of paragraphs of writing later, it feels like the rollercoaster is ascending the hill again.

Heres to the fake adults! Keep on faking it till you make it!