**Warning: some f-bombs and naughty language ahead!

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“What’s the fucking point?” I screamed to no one but the night sky.

My cheeks a messy sea of mascara and tears, my lungs exhausted from surfing the tattered shores of grief and my stomach churning from one too many glasses of champagne.

Hello, rock bottom—so not nice to meet you.

I was lost. Really lost.

I was listless, restless, hopeless—I couldn’t sit still. I paced around my apartment like a wild animal, my mind unable to quiet. It spun like a wheel, even at three in the morning, a clattering cacophony of all the things I couldn’t ignore anymore. My relationships kept failing in the most toxic ways, I wasn’t making enough money, and my career was nonexistent. All I could see was darkness, desperation and despair for miles—my life appeared, once again, to be falling apart.

I was lost. A lost cause, I thought.

It’s strange looking back, because I didn’t know it then, but it was in those darkest moments where everything seemed to shatter that everything was actually starting to come together.

In the midst of my rock-bottom hell, my head landed heavy in my hands, eyes tilted down towards the beige carpet—and I just sat there, so immersed in my own pain. I wanted to give up. I felt forsaken, cast out—like I didn’t belong anywhere.

It’s true—I didn’t belong anywhere. I never had. I squeezed and pushed and plucked my sparkly feathers and hid the hungry hurricanes of my eyes, cramming myself into jobs that weren’t quite right, relationships that were almost great and friendships that were toxic on their best days.

I didn’t fit anywhere—but I didn’t yet see that that was a profound blessing.

I wasn’t like them. The pretty, shiny ones who didn’t laugh too loud or care too deeply. The ones who could go swiftly and neatly about their busy days without thinking about what life means when we die. The ones who didn’t ache for someone to see into the harrowing depths of their souls. The ones who didn’t feel each moment like a wild wave in their hearts—oh no, they smiled calmly on the morning train, as a thousand emotions went off like ecstatic bottle rockets in my gut every four seconds.

I wasn’t like them, and I hated it.

But trying so desperately to fit in is where I went wrong. I had to lie to myself hundreds of times a day, iron away my intensity, smash down my indigo feathers and pretend to be some cheap-ass version of myself—just to keep up my numb, “normal” façade. But I couldn’t do that forever. Because the truth is, I’m weird as fuck. I’m wild-hearted, imaginative, sensitive as can be, and I prefer to speak in trembling lines of heart-soaked poetry.

So really, my journey to rock bottom was a sacred journey towards self-acceptance.

When we lie to ourselves, we will get lost. There’s no doubt about it—life will throw up obstacles and truth will try to smack us awake. Transformation will huff and puff and blow down our perfect little house-of-cards life.

That’s a divine blessing. That’s our souls screaming to us for dear life.

Why not listen?

Because the truth is—most people are lost. They just pretend to be found. They are found in distraction, in sleep, in numbness and in shiny, sparkly things that don’t really serve their higher purpose, but ensure that they’re busy enough to never slow down and feel the agonizing grief that hides in their gut like a secret lake.

But you—you’re different.

You feel it. You can’t not feel it. You can’t hide from yourself so easily.

Thank fuck!

And yes—maybe in this moment, you are lost. But you are not a lost cause.

I repeat: you are not a lost cause.

Even if you’re bawling your eyes out, sitting in a pile of shattered pieces—everything’s a mess and you’re certain you’ll never figure things out or find your purpose or live the life you dreamed about—so what?

That’s just the fear and self-doubt talking. Don’t listen.

Stand up. Stand up in the midst of all the terrifying darkness. Stand up and feel the tiniest dewdrop of hope land on your chin. Feel possibility surge, like tingly pulses of lightning, through your bones.

Stand up. ‘Cause this story isn’t over yet.

You are not a lost cause.

Why?

Because you have the gritty strength to see your way through this. Because when we fall so far down and darkness is all we see, there is nothing to do but rise up—yes, even with shaky knees—and take a brave stand for our souls. Because our pain and emptiness itself becomes the sacred lantern that guides us to truth. Because from the broken edges of all the things that didn’t work, something will.

Being lost is a goddamn blessing—it’s empowering—it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s the recognition by soul that you want more than cheap bubbly wine and empty good times and meaningless jobs with fancy titles and half-hearted lovers and expensive designer labels that you think will make you happy, but never actually do—hell, you thirst for more. So be lost. Question everything. Get really thirsty.

Stand up. ‘Cause this story isn’t over yet.

Let the tears fall—let them guide you deeper, into the darkest caverns of your jeweled being. Fall apart. Scream. But keep going, even if you’re scared shitless—even if you feel like the pain will kill you, even if you feel like you just can’t do this or if you feel like you’re going to break into a thousand sad pieces.

Keep going.

The map will come together as you walk. The blueprint of your life will come into view, piece by precious piece. One foot in front of the other. One breath at a time. I know, it’s so dark, you can’t even see where you’re going and it seems utterly hopeless.

But keep going—trust.

Because life has a marvelous way of coming together—unknown threads join in the most beautiful patterns, especially when we take matters into our own hands.

Finding yourself is an action, a verb—it’s not something that just falls on our laps out of pure dumb luck—it requires effort. It requires fire. It requires the moxie that’s been hiding inside you. It requires every gritty drop of strength—and softness—you’ve got.

So do it.

Paint your own path. Sketch your own rules. Draw out your deepest desires on paper, on a canvas, in the sweaty palms of your hands. Conjure up your destiny in a sea of imaginative blossoming beauty.

You don’t need to force yourself to fit in anywhere—create your own place in the world.

Create the life you dreamed about when you were four, the life you can’t stand not living for a second more.

Stop giving a fuck what everyone else is doing. Stop wanting their zombie lives and medicated mornings and empty, loveless marriages and colorless jobs in colorless offices with white walls and white carpets and endless piles of paperwork with big legal words that make no sense at all.

Give a fuck about what you want, about what you need. What a joyous voyage it will be to find out what that is.

It will lead you to other souls who are ready to set themselves on fire too.

Get going. Go on this breathtaking journey of a lifetime with no one to guide you but the naked whispers of your own magnificent heart.

Say “yes” to this grand adventure, knowing not where it will take you.

Because life is not about never, ever getting lost.

It is about learning how to come home to ourselves.

Stand up.

‘Cause this story is just beginning.

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Author: Sarah Harvey

Editor: Yoli Ramazzina

Photo: Pixabay