Loop
This is a story about my life, and how I always felt as if I was going nowhere.
“There are a world of answers, outside the loop.”
― Anthony Liccione
Life As I Know It
It all started on June 21, 2000 @ 6:34 am. Brandon Rouzan was now out in the world and taking his first breath of what it takes to live in a place where he will one day have to be responsible for himself.
Growing up, I was always fascinated with destroying things and seeing what the result would be from not having to take responsibility for my actions. I found immense energy in burning paper towels while spraying pam on the flames to ignite my excitement, breaking my mom's candles and trying to carefully monkey glue them back together, and throwing tennis-ball-sized rocks across the wall in my back yard (which was right next to my neighbor's house).
As you can imagine, this makes no sense
But,
I was just a kid, and I was just doing what I felt needed to be released from my soul.
And that was…
The feeling that I was not growing as a human being. I’ve gone through all the schooling (Public, Homeschool, and Private). Each had it’s benefit’s and all had their negatives, but there was always some piece to the puzzle that I never knew was missing.
That’s where this loop I feel, comes to play.
I first noticed it when my English teacher (during my junior year in high school) gave us an assignment to do about how we felt about our lives.
As you can imagine, I was extremely excited to dive into this topic, because I was already in love with expressing my feelings. But this very assignment was a slap to the face and the very thing that made me realize I had to start being responsible for myself.
“When you become a teenager, you step onto a bridge. You may already be on it. The opposite shore is adulthood. Childhood lies behind. The bridge is made of wood. As you cross, it burns behind you”
― Gail Carson Levine
Writing Changed My Life
For some reason this assignment did something to me, like it made me think about who I was and where I was going in life.
I titled it, “Living Dead”
This came out of me before I even thought to take into consideration the life I was living. I knew exactly how I felt about life before I even knew how to pay attention to my emotions and I didn’t do that until I was 18 and I wrote my paper when I was 16.
Up until I was about 18 and a half I had been taking all that I felt inside and releasing it out to the world, this is what created this spiral and it constantly made me feel down about my self and causing me to dig myself out of this hole, there were even times when it was almost too late.
So this assignment… I learned 3 different phases to who I was purely through writing all the pain I felt.
1. I’m ok
Has anyone ever asked you how you were doing and you answered by saying, “I’m doing ok?”, well that was me, and I noticed that through the patterns I saw from this assignment. I realized that the very word’s I was using to describe certain aspects of my life, were causing me to feel this loop I felt at the time would never end.
i spend all of you pretending i’m okay when i’m not, pretending i’m happy when i’m not, pretending about everything to everyone.”
― Nina LaCour
2. I’m Good
This is a phrase most people say, but I realized that it does nothing for me and through my writing I learned how to level up from this description of myself. To something that makes me feel alive and turns heads whenever someone asks me how I am doing, and that is
3. I Am Amazing
This I achieved when I turned 19 and is described better in my story, “My First Real Job”, but through saying those very 3 words whenever someone asks me how I am doing, I realized how it separated me from the people around me, and I FINALLY got my first little piece of what it felt like to break free of this loop.
“Those who have courage and faith shall never perish in misery”
― Anne Frank
Life Today
Life for me today has gravely changed, when it comes to how I view myself, but that loop I was telling you about is always knocking at my front door. I may look, or appear as if I am soaring high in the sky, but there’s always those demons that I feel we all have to overcome.
If there is one thing that I can do for whoever reads this. Is to make sure that I provide value that can help someone else in their life, and I believe if you simply change the words that you express to describe yourself. That you will break free of whatever holds you down.
For no one can change who you are except yourself.
Read that last line over and again, and you will eventually understand that you are alone on this road of self-discovery. You might have been lying to yourself this whole time, but today you will become better, and tomorrow you will have grown stronger.
Thank you for your time, and Create An Amazing Day 🌞
I would love your comments, so bring them my way.
Brandon loves to write, read, and meditate first thing in the morning. It’s through this daily habit that he will become a successful young man, who wants nothing more than to know he left his mark on this world for all who are living and to come.
