The Opinion I Quietly Changed

For a long time I believed life sucked. It wasn’t the “life sucks” you feel after a bad day. I had plenty of reasons to believe life was actually out to get me.

To begin with, I’d grown up in an abusive home. Upon leaving home after college, I started dating someone who was also abusive. Afterwards, I was homeless twice. With all these challenges I’d faced, it was easy to think I was somehow “cursed.” After all, the world was treating me like its own personal punching bag, and I felt like there was nothing I could do about it.

There came a time when I eventually did stop believing this. It was a slow transition, as I was in therapy then. Of course, it didn’t happen overnight. It took me some time to form friendships, and from those friendships I learned not everyone acted the same way the people who’d hurt me did.

Some of the biggest changes in my views about life came from the cats in our sanctuary. It wasn’t one specific cat or one particular moment. Instead, it was watching how some of these cats overcame their bad experiences.

Before arriving in our sanctuary, Chloe lived with a woman who’d hit her because she was too energetic. Then there was Oreo, who’d been treated like a real-life baby doll instead of a living being who was able to make his own choices.

Undoubtedly, what happened to them in their past mattered. It wasn’t the end of their stories though. Instead, they had the opportunity to become something different. They could have good lives in which they could make decisions for themselves.

Somewhere along the way, I started seeing this was true for me too. Although there were many years when I thought about what I’d been through, now I was starting to wonder if this was the whole story. Since my life had changed, what would happen if I could change with it?

The cats taught me as time passes, life doesn’t stay the same. We can choose to change our lives, or it could change without giving us any choice in the matter. Nevertheless, the one thing that is up to us is how we choose to see these changes.

Back then, I didn’t realize how big of a shift this would make in my life. Instead of seeing myself as a punching bag, I now saw myself as someone who could make choices of their own. This doesn’t mean I believe I’m in control of everything. I understand none of us can control everything though. There are still times when I’ll get sick, things will go wrong, or I’ll be disappointed by what life brings my way.

Through all of this, one thing remains true. I’m still in charge of what I do with what happens to me and what I learn from it. The one thing that changed most quietly though is what I’d gone through years ago wasn’t going to continue deciding who I am today.

Even though I don’t know where life will take me, I’m okay with this. It’s impossible to say where I’ll be five years from now. I know I can be certain of something today and learn I was wrong tomorrow.

This is another part of growing. I’ve learned to no longer hold on so tightly to everything I believe. I allow myself to see things from different viewpoints.

Chloe has changed from the cat who was being abused for being too energetic. Oreo is no longer someone’s baby doll. I no longer have to be the person everything happened to.