It’s the first day of 2023 and life is changing. Well, really, life is changing every day of our lives – even when it feels like everything is stagnating. Every day is a new chance to do things better and become more of what we want to be.
I met someone at work who surprised me, because I have never in my life met someone so much like me. We had worked together a few months before I even really talked to him, and it wasn’t until we were randomly sat together at a work gathering that I found out he was on the spectrum too. When we talked at our company Christmas party, I started to understand that he and I were quite alike and the more I talk with him, the more I see my own struggles in him. We have so many similarities that I find it almost scary.
We are also very different though, in fact so much so that our lives have turned out very differently. He has a loving family, a girlfriend who is willing to fight for them and a wonderful little girl. He is, in many ways, the opposite side of the coin compared to me. We may have been made from the same material but have been shaped in very different ways.
Seeing that someone like me, not just on the spectrum, but someone truly like me can have a different kind of life has made me see that my decisions truly shape my life – that what I am doesn’t define me as much as what I chose to do with what I have.
I also see aspects of myself that I never really liked in a different light, because I see how those same qualities can be sweet, adorable or even admirable in him and therefore I like myself better after meeting him. I cannot keep calling him him, so I shall call him Mr. Owl because he makes me know myself better.
The reason I wanted to tell you this story about my meeting with Mr. Owl in this new year’s special blog post is that this is the beginning of a new year, a time for change and new beginnings. Mr. Owl told me that he was “surviving” in spite of all the challenges we face in life and when he said that I instantly knew that I was still the same and that I don’t want to survive in life anymore. I want to live.
I can see that my life could have been entirely different, that I am not where I am today because of who I am or what I experienced in life, but because of the choices I made. I made the best choices I could at the time – even the bad decisions I made, I made because I was doing my best at the time. The thing is, I am different now and I can make new choices, I can make my life better. I may have challenges like long covid and autism and anxiety and depression and whatnot, but those things do not have to define me – just like whatever you struggle with does not have to define you.
You get to make new choices for yourself. You get to change your life if you want to. It takes courage, of course, but more than anything it takes determination. We need to know, to truly know inside of us, that it is possible for life to be different.
We can make our lives better, we don’t need others to make life better for us, but yes, it does help to see in others that it is possible. Change is not always possible in the moment, but that doesn’t mean it can never happen. Mr. Owl lived a life completely different from me and his life is one that involves a lot more people than mine does. I can’t help but envy it a little, because I could have lived a similar life, but in the end, I made the choices I did for a reason, and could I do it all again I would make the same choices I already made once. Seeing that my life could be different doesn’t mean I regret my choices, it means I truly understand that I can make different choices in the future because I was wrong about some things in the past. I believe, for perhaps the first time in my life, that I have the ability to create the life I want and for that gift of knowledge alone I will be eternally grateful to Mr. Owl. Thank you, my friend.
Therefore, I will make different choices this year. This is my new year’s resolution – I will make mistakes I have never made before, I will learn things I never thought I could learn, I will trust people who deserve my trust and aim towards creating a life where I don’t just survive every day but live it.
There you have it; I’ve put into words what I want most in life right now. What do you want? Have you met your Mr. or Mrs. Owl? Someone who lets you see yourself differently, because they are so much like you that you feel truly seen and yet they are so different from you that you understand just how your choices define your life? If you did meet someone like that, what did you do?
Happy New Year! May we all make the best of it.
