The Calming Effect of Deciding

Anxiety was not something I was so familiar with. Depression, sure, me and depression used to go steady for years. But anxiety was a new beast. Waking up and freaking out before even making it out of bed is a miserable way to start the day. Naturally this freak out would be followed by a morning coffee, that'll fix it.

After a few weeks of this, with my thought patterns in a non-productive vortex, I came to the conclusion that I had never had such a lack of direction for my life. Historically, I always had a glimmer of hope that I would one day end up as an artist. Marching on through my four year science degree, two year paramedic college program and now six years with full-time shift work, I told myself that this next step would get me a stable enough life to have time to paint. It sounds silly, but that dream of doing art, kept me going through my healthcare endeavors. My compass pointed toward art, but the magnet felt weaker and weaker every year. The compass needle, like my thoughts, then began to spin and spin. Being 30, the world starts to expect marriage, buying a home and having children. These expectations weighed on my mind, with the pressure leading to thoughts of giving up the dream for stable family life. Go to work, have an anxiety-free home life, sleep and repeat. That could be nice if it were not for the fact that working as a paramedic had my lust for life in a choke-hold. There is enough to say about the job for an entire book, but suffice to say, that I could not tolerate the job for another 25 years.

Depression always seems to be related to thoughts and regrets about the past, whereas anxiety relates more to concerns about the future. Often I think about how much I sacrificed in university only to come short of getting into medical school. Or about how if only I kept going to the gym, following a program, how frickin' jacked I would be. This, I suspect, will continue to haunt me. But at least by deciding on a direction to head toward, I can combat anxiety. I have decided that it is okay to work toward being an artist. It is okay and it is possible. The moment I accepted that, the calm quickly washed over me. My day had purpose, and I would be excited to get out of bed. Going to work was funding the dream. No longer did I have golden handcuffs shackling me to an ambulance. This is all just day two of deciding, so I'm being a little dramatic, but you get the idea!

At the heart of this post, I am trying to impart the truth that it is not only okay to dream, but it is absolutely critical. To allow yourself to drift in life is painful and unfulfilling. Whatever it may be, you must decide on it, and I mean really decide. When you take it seriously, you start to make time for the little steps to get where you want to be. For myself, I have decided to keep working on the ambulance while I continue to work on my art. In the mean time, I plan to start seeing a therapist. In addition, I hope to update this blog once a week with topics relating to the process of transitioning from shift worker to artist. One last minor thing to do...making and posting my damn artworks.

-Alex