Today is my birthday, and I just don’t feel happy like I maybe should feel. I think about the people I miss who are not in my life anymore, and it even makes me feel small. A whole year has gone by, and things are very different now that they were a year ago. A girl I really liked played me and now we don’t talk, friends drifted away, and I miss family who live far away. I keep thinking about how things would be if she was still here. If I could have my friends here with me. I am not old, so maybe I should not feel this way, but I feel nostalgic. I miss how I used to feel before, and so far every year just worries me even more. I am scared of growing up. I am just worried about what I will do. I have to deal with college, work, etc. What will I do? Where am I going? Am I taking the right path? I just don’t know a lot of things, and that makes me anxious. I don’t know if I will ever feel complete. If I will ever find my people, and most importantly if I will ever feel like I belong. Hopefully this is something that will go away.
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I don’t celebrate birthdays and honestly I lose respect for people who do make a big deal of it. Especially men. As for the feelings you described they don’t go away but coping gets easier.
I’ll go through what you wrote one sentence at a time:
> “Today is my birthday, and I just don’t feel happy like I maybe should feel. I think about the people I miss who are not in my life anymore, and it even makes me feel small.”
Usually the people I miss fall into one of two categories. Either they’re people who want to hear from me or they’re people who don’t want to hear from me.
If they don’t want to hear from me, I usually internet stalk them from an alt social media account on my other cellphone (because they blocked my main account) and then I write what I call an “unsent letter”. Basically I open up the chat in social media and I write them a message, but instead of hitting “send”, I cut the text of the message and send it to myself. Then I read it from my main cellphone.
For people who want to hear from me, I have a list of friends who I check up on at regular intervals (usually monthly). Like I’ll text them sometime like “Hey, just checking up on all of my friends. How are you?” But yeah, every month I go through a list of friends and check up on all of them. Sometimes one of them stops replying to me and then I’ll remove him from the list and sometimes I’ll text someone new and ask them if they want to be added to the list. I refer to the day of the month when I text all my friends as “friendship day”.
> “A whole year has gone by, and things are very different now that they were a year ago. A girl I really liked played me and now we don’t talk, friends drifted away, and I miss family who live far away.”
As you grow up, you naturally lose people. Prepubescent childhood “friendships” are more like what we would call being acquaintances in adulthood. Like in childhood, if you like to play the Pokémon videogames, and another kid also likes to play the Pokémon videogames, and you play said videogames together, you have a “friendship”. In adulthood if you like to play the game of pool (billiards) and another guy also likes to play the same game and you play it together regularly from time to time but don’t deeply care about each other, you are just acquaintances. Like the same relationship that in childhood was a “friendship” is in adulthood acquaintance-ship.
But yeah, definitely make a list of people and check up on all of them regularly like I mentioned before.
> “I am scared of growing up. I am just worried about what I will do. I have to deal with college, work, etc. What will I do? Where am I going? Am I taking the right path?”
Are you addicted to drugs or alcohol? That would be the wrong path. Are you going to jail? That would also be the wrong path.
Other than that, there are many paths which aren’t wrong. It’s an open world. There are lots of different college majors. There are lots of different jobs. Find a job with decent pay and a low unemployment rate, find out what education you need to get that job, and go for it. Do your research and take time off to figure it out if necessary. It’s better to take a semester off to learn and find out than it is to not take a semester off and pick the wrong major and the wrong job/career for you. There are many options.
> “I just don’t know a lot of things, and that makes me anxious. I don’t know if I will ever feel complete. If I will ever find my people, and most importantly if I will ever feel like I belong. Hopefully this is something that will go away.”
You might have some depression. Maybe talk to a therapist or counselor. There are also free listeners on a website called 7 Cups (Google “7 Cups” or “7 Cups therapy”). 7 Cups listeners aren’t professional therapists, they’re just regular people who took a 15-ish minute YouTube course beforehand, but they can be helpful.
Also, for finding people, consider joining school or university extracurriculars or clubs. For adults there are also social events listed on event websites like Meetup and Eventbrite. I personally like the Meetup mobile app which has a map view of local events.
Nobody knows everything and a lot is unknown. Like sometimes somebody finds something that works for them, so they recommend it to someone else, but what worked for them doesn’t work for someone else.
Good luck.
I think feeling this way is pretty common. It will probably pass, as it has for many others. Focus on being able to feed, clothe and shelter yourself. The rest is optional.
It ok feel to that way, your just processing the changes that are happening in your life. Just remember it your day. GOD has gave you the gift to see another milestone in your life. Gave you the gift of living on your bornday.
Some suggestions in my opinion is to celebrate. Do you what feel you want to do. Find joy and happiness in your day or find joy and happiness in your life. Because I believe everyday is your birthday. GOD has blessed with a gift. To wake up and to celebrate life. Your
I can relate, as I have never been overly fond of my birthday as an adult, and it just felt like “another day”. That being said, the reality is that if you want it to become a happy day, it’s within your power to change how your birthday is for future years.
I have lost my entire family, with exception of my little brother, so I can really relate to the persistent of missing people who were in your life. To tell you that the feeling is ever going to go away completely would be a lie – Instead, in my experience, the hi’s and low’s associated with it eventually transition into smaller and smaller instances, and your ability to handle these situations improves. So it does get better, but it’s never going to be a good time, dealing with loss, either permanently or temporarily.
One thing that took me longer than I care to realize and truly internalize is that you cannot gear your reality around another person(s). You have to steer your own life, meet and lose people along the way, and have a lot of laughs and tears on that journey. Compared to my earlier years, I have lost ~70% of my friends – But in that process, the ones that remained are pretty much like brothers. You don’t need a lot of people, a few quality ones can change your whole world for the better.
We all indulge in nostalgia from time to time – I mean hell, isn’t that one of the main reasons we take pictures? But it’s important not to spend too much time looking backwards – You aren’t going that way. Keep yourself grounded in the present, but looking outward to the horizon. You do not need to have everything figured out, and anyone that tells you they do is a liar. Figuring out life, what it means to you, and the things you value will all change, morph and transition over time, and you will change with it. Just be truly honest with yourself, what you want to accomplish, and just start plugging away at it.
You’re going to make mistakes. We all have, still do, and will continue to. You need to just get back on that horse and keep plodding forward. I don’t have all the answers myself, but if there is any questions you’d like another set of eyes on, I would be happy to discuss them with you.
Life is tough. You’re tougher.