Subtle Things & Lacking Fulfillment

Life has caught up to me lately. Really, it seems like I can't turn my brain off. I'm having trouble sleeping. I'm anxious from the moment I wake up. I dread going to work every day.

I feel like my life is lacking something. Which seems crazy to say, because it is incredibly busy and full, with work, and wedding planning, and moving, and everything else. But I feel, hollow, I guess.

I have so many things to be happy about, but lately, all I can feel is sadness, and I am not sure how to fix it.

Maybe, I'm allowing other people's actions to affect me too much. I've always been a people pleaser, and I've done so to the point of breaking -- trying to plan my wedding date, for example, was insane because I felt like I had to cater to other people's needs. I hate confrontation, and I am usually more willing to concede than make someone else unhappy.

Maybe, I feel stagnant, because I took a term off from school, which leaves me working, only. Currently, I am not doing anything to push my life forward, to get me away from working in retail or to make me closer to working in a field that I enjoy. I tell myself I needed this term off, but I feel like a failure for doing so.

Maybe, I feel taken for granted by some of the people in my life. I'm a verbal pin cushion, a confidant, a listener, and I am often put in a position where I don't know what to do.  I'm so involved in a situation, to the point where worry makes me anxious and sick. I want to remove myself, and back away for my own sanity, but feel like a bad person for wanting to do so.

Maybe, I dislike who I have turned into. I used to be such a carefree, confident, romantic spirit, and now I feel bogged down by people's opinions, I care too much about what others think when they see me. I can't stick to anything, and no matter how hard I try, I give in to temptation.

Maybe, I am far too envious of other people's lives. People who are graduating from college already, people who are getting married before me, people who are having children, people who have better jobs than me, or more money than me, or people who have it all figured out. Even though I have those things going for me in the future, I frustrated that I don't have them now.

And while all those ideas make complete sense as to why I am feeling empty, I still feel like I am looking for an answer.

I know that for my happiness, I need to stop listening to other people, and follow my own heart and head.
I know that for my happiness, I need to find the motivation to start school again, and get a degree to work with children.
I know that for my happiness, I need to remove myself from situations that make happiness difficult to obtain.
I know that for my happiness, I need to be happy with who I am now, so that I can become who I want to be. I'm still that carefree, lovable person, but she is being hidden by sadness and insecurities
I know that for my happiness, I need to be happy for others, even when they do the things I want to do, but haven't. I need to have faith in myself that these things will happen for me, because I will make them.

Maybe, when I accomplish all these things, I won't feel so vacant anymore.