Have you ever had this happen to you? A special event is coming up and you're super excited. You can't wait to go and experience it, to make amazing memories and have the time of your life. You wait in agony, watching the hours and day creep by at a snail's pace, your excitement rising as your special day gets closer and closer. And then, it finally happens: your special day has come! You get all dolled up, you do your hair, put on your favorite perfume and head out.

But, when you get there... it's very clear that it's nothing like you imagined. You go home feeling crestfallen, feeling like such a fool for going ahead and letting your imagination get the better of you.

This, of course, had happened to me.

Recently, I started a new job and it's not everything I had hoped it was. I've come home in tears because I was severely unhappy at my new place of work. It could just be some newbie jitters, but I know when I'm truly unhappy with my current lot in life. It's so difficult to remain positive when you're in a place where you feel unhappy.

This is where the title of my article comes from: when things aren't what they seem.

On the outside, my new job sounded amazing. I was going to be making good money, working full-time, and meeting tons of new people that were surely going to become my new best friends like at my old job. But, what I was really met with, was a toxic environment where it seemed like it was every man for themselves. I get that in a commission-based environment that you need to take care of yourself, but there really isn't a need for cattiness or negativity between co-workers. We may be taking care of ourselves but at the end of the day, we're a team that needs to work together.

Now, how do you combat this illness? How do we break ourselves out of this vicious cycle of disappointment and sadness?

You could always just go in with the lowest expectations possible and save yourself the heartbreak. Or, you could leave that environment and find a place that really speaks to you. Get into a place that is the same on the outside as it is on the inside. But, that's not always the case.

It's hard to find the perfect place to settle into because there really is no perfect place to be. Every place you're going to be in or work at isn't going to be your perfect "Sex and the City" fantasy, unfortunately. It's a hard truth to accept, and it's something I'm still working on myself.

I don't know if I'll ever be truly happy with my reality.

What I do know is that someday I will be.