Discovering Mack

1| One

Have you ever stood and looked in the bathroom mirror and not recognised the person looking back at you? Sure, the reflection resembles you, the physical version of you that everyone else can see, the image that you show to the world. But if you look closely, the eyes are tired and empty, somewhere along the line all those quick take away dinners and lack of exercise began to catch up to you. You despise the reflection, you don't like what you've become, but you have no idea where to even begin to love yourself again. Mostly it just sounds like more time and effort than your life allows for.

Ironic really, that you want to change the fact that you don't have time to make the changes you want to, but you can't, because you don't have time. Lost yet? Me too.

Do you ever think about what your life might have been like if you made other choices? How far back do you go? How do you pinpoint which decision it was that got you to this exact point? After all, every decision you ever made leads you to where you are right now, yet one small choice could have led you down a different path.

Is where you are now, where you are meant to be? Is this great big life planned out for us all along, or is it a result of the decisions we make along the way. Sort of like a chose your own adventure book. The paths have already been written, but the decisions you make determine which page you turn to next. It's impossible to know which way is the right way, because unlike a book, real life doesn't allow you to turn back the pages and make the other choice. There is no do over, just here and now.

I realised a little while ago that I live my life pleasing everyone else. I realised I stopped making decisions for myself and only for those around me. More specifically, for Noah.

It no longer mattered if it made me happy, only if it kept him content. Making him angry, only made things harder for me. So I choose peace over happiness.

It's not like my life is that bad right? I have a roof over my head, a boyfriend who says he loves me, a job, two actually, and a family, even if I don't see them much. I can't really complain, so many people have it worse than I do.

Maybe this is all that life had planned for me, maybe I was never meant to amount to more. Some people are supposed to just be mediocre. That's how the world operates, society needs the poor, less fortunate working class to make the rich people rich. You are only considered to be rich, because you have more than others, right? Noah says we should be grateful for what we have. For what I work for.

Yet, days like today, when I'm so tired, I feel fat and ugly and my bank account is dangerously low before payday, I find myself wanting more.

Deep down I know I'm worth more. But I'm too scared to find out what that more is and go after it. When I lie in bed at night willing sleep to come, I think about what else is out there. What am I missing out on?

I don't dare share these thoughts with Noah. He would shut me down and then question why he isn't enough for me. We have all we need, why do I have to continuously try to seek out more from life. It's a tired argument, just like all of them are. It's easier to just agree with him and keep my mouth shut. I'm always doing what's easier.

He loves me, I know he does, he tells me he does. But sometimes I feel like he is holding me back. From what? I don't know.

We have plans. Or we had plans. Since high school we started planning our futures together. Neither of us went to University, choosing to work straight out of school instead to save money. We wanted a house in the suburbs, to marry young and once we hit our mid 20's we would start a family. Before all that though, we wanted to travel, first to the Asian countries on our doorstep like Vietnam and Cambodia, and backpacking through Thailand. Then next we wanted to travel around Europe and last we would drive around all of Australia in a converted bus.