How Winning the Lottery at 23 Changed my Life

How many times have you had that moment where you can look back and think "aha... that's when everything changed"?

I would like to think that life is sprinkled full of them, but as a twenty-something year old, you may need to give me a few more decades before I can provide a definitive answer to that.

However, in my few years of life thus far, I can tell you that I've had a few "aha" moments of my own.

The one that I would like to tell you about today, is the day that I won the lottery.

Lottery - An activity or event regarded as having an outcome depending on fate

Before I won, let me tell you, I felt far from a winner. Only two months prior to winning, I was told that I was too sick to work. I was clinically depressed and felt entirely disconnected from myself and the world around me. It was like I had been propelled into outer space and left to float in orbit with only a small oxygen tank and no way to return home again.

Nobody tells you how difficult it is to be in your early twenties. At best, people will label it the "best" times of their lives, discounting the fact that they lived in a state of near-constant confusion, fear that they were lagging behind. All while calculating how many $0.25 ramen noodles they could buy before guiltily calling home asking if they could cash out some of their tooth fairy money 15 years after the fact.

At most though, people will look wistfully up into the sky wearing a look of nostalgia and fondness, tell you it was a special time in their life but with no express desire to go back and do it all over again.

In the future, I'll probably describe my early twenties in the latter way. For I, like many others, strutted out of university a freshly minted graduate, ready to take on the world and finally be an adult with zero knowledge or expectation of the absolute sh*t storm that would be awaiting me on the other side.

I'll admit though, I have it very good in comparison to most other people in the world. I've never neglected the good fortune in my life, but the events that consisted "Act I of being an adult" certainly had me doubting the ability to see and believe that I did indeed carry a great fortune.

Some time in 2021

Shortly after university, I packed up my bags tearfully, left my college town and moved to a new city. I remember my first week there where I would tentatively walk around the streets, in awe of the grandeur of the buildings that surrounded me and intimidated by their stature.

I remember walking around the local parks, intermittently hearing the sound of laughter erupt among groups of friends, all the while realising that I was walking alone.

Every day, I logged into my corporate job and while connected to the VPN, felt entirely disconnected and removed from the work I was doing.

I remember looking out into the nearby woods and just wanting to run away into the thicket of trees.

In sum, I was lost and I was adrift.

I remember distinctly feeling entirely afraid because I didn't know who I was. I knew who my friends were, I knew what my job was, but I had no clue what the essence of me meant anymore. It had months since I had done any of my hobbies, it had almost been years since I had any big life-altering dreams, and it had been a lifetime of not making any important decisions for myself. Safe to say, I was definitely going through a quarter-life crisis.

If you play the below track (Fred again.. - Angie I've been lost) and let the lyrics and sound fully take ahold, you can get an auditory representation of how I felt in the zeitgeist of it all. The cruel irony of this song is that my name is actually Angie and I was indeed lost.

All jokes aside though, so many times I went to sleep with tears in my eyes and I would pray to God or the Universe to let me be okay, all the while playing this track on a loop to send me off into the world of dreams.

Then, one day, serendipitously, it all changed.

Friday 13 August 2021

I was on a bus ride home when all the tears I had been holding back for the entire day suddenly gushed out of me like a wave breaking into colossal, untameable white water. There wasn't enough air in the bus, it was too hot, too crowded, and I felt like I was choking.

Quickly, I raced off the bus having no idea where I was or how many stops I had left. All I knew is that I had to get off. My head was full of adrenaline and I felt suspended into a different reality, heart pounding, hands numb, brain afraid. Life didn't feel real, or maybe I just didn't want it to be.

Somehow, I found my way to a small park and near collapsed onto the side railings. The day was beautiful - a perfect summer's day. The air swirled around emitting a cool breeze to offset the beating heat and intensity of the August sun. You could see people lounging in all-sorts of odd garments, basking in the sunlight with few or no worries in the world. But in my mind and in my heart, I simultaneously felt set alight on fire and buried in a deep, cold tundra.

Upon the side of the park, I buried my head in my hands and let out deep, gasping cries of pain and anguish. I remember begging the world to give me some respite, imploring it to give me strength to carry on, because as much as I hesitate to admit this, there were times I didn't know whether I could.

In the midst of all of this, I barely realised that there was a figure standing over me. Quite literally, a guardian angel looking over me. Except my guardian angel wasn't wearing pristine white robes, nor did he have a glowing halo over his head. Quite the contrary, my guardian angel wore dark sports clothes, probably mildly damp from sweat due to the sweltering heat, and instead of a halo, donned a cheesy baseball cap.

Timidly and awkwardly, he asked if I was okay. Unable to let out many words, choking between my gasps and tears, I simply shook my head and continued to cry. Poor guy, he probably felt terribly awkward and embarrassed trying to console a random young woman in a park. Indeed, he apologised for his intrusion profusely, acting as though he had just walked in on me naked or something. Realising that he wasn't going anywhere though, my breaths slowly calmed and elongated. My crying began to hasten and the warm sun evaporated the remnants of tears off my face.

Kneeling beside me, he shared part of what he was going through at that time as well, and in our shared commiseration, he offered genuine words of hope and kindness. One thing he said that has stayed with me since was this,

"Hold onto the little things that make you happy. Grab those things that make you "you" and never let them go. If you can do that, you'll always be a winner, no matter what life throws at you."

Breaking a smile, he gently waved the carrier bag he had been holding. It was from a child's clothing store and he excitedly told me that he would soon be seeing his daughter whom he had not been able to see due to his recent separation. Before he left, he paused, turned round and said "you're going to be okay." Whilst so many people far closer to me had said the exact same thing, it didn't feel real until that moment. Until my entirely random, one in a million chancer encounter with that stranger, I didn't believe I would be okay.

Walking home, it felt like I had finally begun to let the curtains open in my mind. I was allowing the sun to shine through and create light where there had only been darkness before. Call me crazy but I quite literally felt embraced by the sun.

And well, you know the rest, I won the lottery. You can even see my winning entry below.

Aftermath

So, as you can probably tell, I didn't win the Euromillions, but that doesn't mean I didn't win my own lottery. As cliche as it sounds, I won the lottery of life and from it I had a new lifeline and a chance to live again. I had a chance to wake up from the inertia and emptiness that had filled me and kept me asleep for almost a year.

I've never been one for taking risks. I've never been one for believing that I could actually bring something to the table or that I could create anything of value. I never believed that I could live an extraordinary life. But I count my blessings every day for that moment I sat down to type my first 'Top Stories" article because it brought me here today.

From that brilliant summer's day in August, I began to write and I haven't stopped since. In all of my articles published to date I wrote from my heart, I wrote about what I knew, and I wrote for you. I've fallen so in love with what I do that I've even begun to write my own book which I'm hoping to publish over the next year!

(So, if I am a little quiet on Vocal Media, that'll be why)

I can't tell you that things have changed so much in my life materially. I still live in the same flat, eat the same food I always did and have the same job I had. As well, I can't say that things changed overnight immediately. Indeed, there followed many more tears, nights of confusion and days spent in a haze. But my God, I really did win in a way.

I hope you're not mad that I used the lottery as one big metaphor, but I think it's important to. So often we neglect the little wins we get in life. We focus entirely on the wrong prize to be won. We forget that life has millions of lotteries of all sizes that we can play. We forget that we can also create our own fate and magic.

So, whatever your lottery is, go out and play it. As the girl in one of my all-time favourite YouTube videos (click here) said, "always play life's little lotteries, because you just might win." Embrace that part of you that wonders, "but what if I actually do win?" It's those seeds of hope and optimism that will carry you through the greatest storms and into potentially the biggest and most rewarding wins of your life.

To anyone who's still reading, thank you. This was my coming of age story and I am so grateful to have shared it with you.

Read More:

Why it's Okay to Hate Your Job

Dear Reader: If COVID-19 Hurt Your Mental Health, I'm Sorry

Here's How Hating My Job is Bettering the World

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