2020 is forever the year that catalyzed my growth.
I’d been a “relationship girl” my entire life, moving from one long relationship to the next, always having to care for or to consider another person. I didn’t know who I was independent of someone else, always a half never a whole.
Then, in the back half of my twenties, I found myself in an unhealthy relationship with a man who demanded so much of my energy that there was never any leftover for myself. This was a problem, as I was acutely aware of my own unhealthy issues that I knew would exist in perpetuity as long as I continued to neglect them at his expense. I didn’t know who I’d be or how I’d fair alone, but I knew I needed to find out.
So in March 2020, one week before Getty sent everyone home for the looming pandemic, I asked my boyfriend to move out. Overnight I went from being in a codependent relationship to existing entirely alone in an apartment and in an empty new york. There was nowhere to go, no one to see, and beyond a few hours at my desk every day, how I spent my time and where I focused my attention was entirely up to me. I knew the position I found myself in was unique and that I needed to take full advantage of the opportunity to work on myself, to “crack catherine.”
I took a very rigorous approach for the following two years with the goal of being the healthiest version of myself by the time I turned 30.
I turn 30 in 8 days, and as I sit here writing this, I can proudly say that through a lot of learning, experimentation, and hard work— I am a different person today than I was yesterday, a month ago, or two years ago.
Importantly, I learned that there is no, and never will be, a “healthiest version of myself.” Growth is a continuous process, and it’s that very process that is the reward. The goal isn’t an end state but rather a state of mind — a Catherine who knows becoming is better than being, who is more interested in feeling good than feeling bad, who chooses to show up for herself not because it is easy but because it is hard.
xx