A wonderful, heartwarming post about life from Reddit contributor Alukima:
I am not witty or interesting; I wont pretend to have anything profound to say. I am 26, female, divorced and spent most of my life feeling empty and hopeless. This may not help anyone, but these realizations helped me find my happiness. The points are in bold.
They didn't lie to you in elementary school, being different is awesome.
In high school and my early twenties I was teased for wearing video game related t-shirts. Now the the same girls who teased me often complain to me over facebook about being suck in generic relationships and "wish they had found something to love the way I love gaming". Also, I recently made a bet that my $15 TMNT purse would get more compliments at a bar than a $900 coach purse. I won.
Some things really do take time.
At one point in my life I was naive enough to think fate decided who we were supposed to marry. I became infatuated with a boyfriend and when he left I thought my life was over. At that time if you had tried to tell me anything different I would have banned you from my life. He was my one true love (so I thought).... Overtime, I came to realize he was a selfish cheater that used me. It wasn't easy and up until a short period of time ago he was my "drunk dial". It took me meeting another of his exes and listening to her identical story for me to finally get over it.
You have to love yourself before anyone can love you (in a romantic way). I married a great guy right out of high school. He was smart, attractive and patient. We bought a house and planned our future. No matter how hard he tried to make me happy I found a way to make us miserable. Looking back I now know I didn't like me and just couldn't understand what a guy like him would see in me, so I questioned his every action. I am still happy we divorced, but I now realize it was 100% my fault.
Finding something you are passionate about in life should be one of your first priorities.
In an episode of Lost Desmond finds out that Penny is his constant, after watching this episode I wanted to find my "constant". I looked through old journals, photos and asked friends. The only consistency in my life was gaming. It made sense. Its the only thing that has stuck with me throughout life. I make game art, keep up on game culture and play games constantly. But I never thought of gaming as a passion. So I for a month I set gaming goals. I found myself happier than ever before. I have now given in and am constantly happy.
If someone that loves you asks you to get help for anything- do it.
I had cancer when I was sixteen, over the next ten years I had numerous people tell me something was wrong. I ignored them. I tried to kill myself and finally sought help. I went to a psychiatrist , she diagnosed me with PTSD. I got treatment and most of my symptoms went away. Close friends kept saying something was wrong. More ignoring. I went to the doctor because of a cold and found out they missed part of the original tumor, It was affecting me in a way that simulated mental illness. Because of my procrastination the tumor had grown into a place that could have killed me. I got lucky. I am cancer free and mentally healthy. Never chance stuff like this. You will never be objective to yourself, listen to people that love you.
Don't help others more than they are willing to help themselves.
My little sister is a meth addict. It breaks me to write this but she is a lost cause. I gave her money, she bought drugs. I let her borrow my car, she stole it. I got her out of bad situations, she got back into them. I let her live with me, she stole from me. The list goes on. If she ever makes a legitimate attempt to change her life I will be there. But until she whole-heartily wants a change I wont even give her my address.
Having a few close friends is better than a huge group of associates.
I somehow became the cool nerd girl when I moved to my current city. I went to a different party every night of the week. It's so pathetic to admit this, but in a month I went from having around 33 pics of me on facebook to over 300. I felt cool. Then I had an issue I needed to talk to someone about. All of my cool friends were as helpful as paper weights in a hurricane. I went back to my small group of "unpopular" friends. They helped me through my issue and loved me just the same.
People who set realistic goals and work towards them succeed.
Have you noticed just how disgustingly poor my understanding of grammar and punctuation is? I never advanced past 8th grade English. Here is something I wrote in g-chat just over a year ago: "I like sam beam better then te decemeris.... i wish thy would tour their going to be in st louis soon. go you wnna go?" That line was sent to a guy I wanted to date. I was trying. I was sober. I am still awful but at least people can understand me. Its very embarrassing but I have to work hard to sound this stupid.
You can always make friends.
I had to start from scratch after my divorce at 24. I was the cause for the breakup so our mutual friends hated me. I tried to stay in the rural town I grew up in but things did not work out, it was just too small. I moved to a larger city and found nerd friendly events. After a short period of time I had made a small but great group of friends. I want to point out that I did have to move to fit in, I grew up in a redneck area. Sometimes you do have to make drastic changes to better your own life.
Keep sight of your future but don't forget your past.
As a child my own household was abusive so I got away whenever I could. I am a very nerdie atheist now but as a child my regular escapes included services at black churches every Sunday. To make it clear- I DO NOT BELIEVE IN ANY KIND OF GOD. But at the certain kind of church I attended we heard more about common sense morality than theology anyway. Regardless of what anyone thinks of religion this period in my life shaped me for the better.
Follow your heart. The end.
Please do forgive me for the haphazard writing, I found early morning inspiration and had to get to work. I just wanted to be honest with my most embarrassing aspects. I am lame, ordinary, unattractive and slightly insane yet really happy. I am tired of hiding honest discourse behind throw away accounts.
Update: I just wanted to thank everyone for the all the positive responses. I can't believe the amount of emails, tweets and blog posts about something I felt like an idiot for submitting.
Thank you so much.
