the answer is blowing in the wind
page 1. how many times have i stared it down, not knowing what will come forth, what will bring my fingers to the keys, and to push out letters which represent ideas that i didn't know i had. there is something more daunting than usual about it these days, a blank page. i am antsy before i even begin, anxious to be done, to get it over with. i have grown impatient with these thoughts, these times. the calendar is waiting to be turned, the leaves have fallen, and i am still where i began.
i wonder if my output could ever match my dreams. somewhere deep down i believe myself capable of great things-- the great american novel, or screenplay, or perhaps political theory. i have no evidence to suggest i am capable of these things. i wonder if anyone who produces these things first has evidence, or if they just decide to go for it.
it seems ridiculous to me that at some point we all have to choose who we are and what we want to be.
page 1 calls again.
have you seen me lately?
out and in from sanity... most days i am okay, but it is still there: the nagging feeling that something is wrong. the good part is, it's no longer about my health, which is a relief. but now i feel like i'm shifting everything onto my relationship with z. i'm scared that our relationship is becoming platonic and that the romance is already fading away, a year into it. of course, i have plenty of evidence to point to the contrary... we just planned a new year's eve getaway for the two of us, for example. and i know a lot of it just has to do with me being overly anxious right now, because instead of relaxing and letting things happen, i have a tendency to overanalyze everything... and i do mean everything. when i'm doing something, i am always thinking about how that something makes me feel, and how i am feeling at that moment. it doesn't matter what it is, it could be sitting in class, it could be in bed with my boy, it could be talking to a professor. i'm always thinking about how things might go wrong.
it's not as bad as it sounds, i don't think other people really notice. i might seem a bit more spastic and awkward than i usually do, but it's not something to throw up a red flag over. lately i've been thinking that i know this is part of my personality and right now it just happens to be magnified. i went back and read over old journal entries and decided i was just as neurotic then, but i didn't really have real, scary things to be neurotic about, so that's why it is worse this time around. of course, it's all a matter of perspective and in three years i will probably look back on this and laugh at myself. indeed, i know i will. that's the tough part about writing journals: you have this permanent record of your stupidity. at the same time, though, i used to write everyday and i think i need to get back into it. it helps me get my feelings out, which i think would be helpful instead of trying to hide them. at this point i feel like it's become a burden to share my feelings with others... my parents, because they are afraid i'll go off the deep end, and my boy, because he has his own problems to worry about. he's been bearing the brunt of this, and it is a lot to ask of him. but if i try to not be emotional it always ends up biting me in the ass later on, and after a while i usually end up bursting into tears and then having a miserable day.
this actually doesn't seem this absurd thinking about it and writing it down. but i think the real problem is that for 22 years i was bottling things up, and when i found someone that i love and trust, i decided to open up, but everything has come spewing out all at once and there's no stopping it. so eventually the rush will subside and i'll have to find a different way to be. and i think that's what scares me. i am changing, i am becoming somebody new. this sounds stupid but i think this is the end of delayed adolescence or something. i was definitely a late bloomer emotionally. i was only becoming interested at 16 and 17 with what most kids go through when they're 12 or 13. don't get me wrong, i spent a good deal of ages 12-15 being a disaffected youth, but i wasn't really social at all. now i think i am hitting the same problem again.. in the late teenage years and early adulthood life is supposed to be a big party. yet i really don't have many close friends nearby other than my boyfriend. and he and i have plenty of fun together but we're basically old people. we go for walks, we go out to eat, we watch movies, and sleep in, and that is basically it. not that i have any problem with that. and i guess that's the thing: we are both content this way. of course, then any sane person would say if we are both content, there shouldn't be a problem. but i know for me there is always some underlying restlessness that will always be there. i will always be needlessly critical of things that are better left alone. but that's who i am and it's not going to change. i just have to learn to deal with it.
you have to admit, it's getting better
so, i think i am on the road to recovery, if that is what this can really be called. i'm not as afraid as i was a month ago, and that is a good thing. i know i am getting better when i think to myself that perhaps this was all a bunch of self-indulgent bullshit and why the hell are you having a quarter-life crisis when a) there is nothing wrong with your life, and b) there are people out there without jobs and homes and food and bigger things to worry about, and c) are you really so delusional to think that your life is so important that things in it might prove or disprove the existence of god? these thoughts are good, they are a return from the far away place i had been in, the one disconnected from the everyday reality of life. the reality that, though i had been absolutely convinced that i would die tomorrow, tomorrow always came, the sun always rose, and i still got out of bed and showered and life went on. i'm 22 years old, for god's sake, and i've been in good health for most of my life (touch wood), so there's really no reason to think that i'm going to drop dead tomorrow. not that it couldn't happen, because it could... but even if it were, there would be no way i could predict it, and hence it's not worth worrying about. that's not to say i'm completely over it... i'm still fretting about things that probably don't warrant fretting, but in general, it's getting better, much better.
i have even once again allowed myself the hubris of starting to think about the future. the bf and i are thinking of going to london for new year's; today i made another short list of places i'd like to apply for PhD programs; and i'm actually starting to realize that i have to get shit done for the end of the semester because it's coming up fast. so is my one year anniversary, and my 23rd birthday. milestones which we mark time by. but the weird thing is, those things on the calendar... next may 22nd, for example, my graduation from my MA program... those things do not become real until they are here. the future never exists, per se, and by the time it gets here, it's the present... and then it's gone. mindfuck, eh? we would love to prepare for every eventuality... think of it. we have something called LIFE insurance, for god's sake. as if there could ever be such a thing. truthfully, you can prepare for whatever but there's no guarantee it will happen the way you want it to.
i have no idea how i got off on this tangent, i suppose some things do happen the way we want them to. of course, i hope to marry z, i hope to be successful, i hope to one day have kids of my own and that my parents might live to become grandparents... but i doubt that my hoping has anything to do with whether or not it actually happens. but then again, what would life be without hope? we wouldn't really have anything to live for, in that case.
i wish i spent my time more wisely, although don't we all. but i feel like i waste so much time and i don't know where it all goes... lost into that irretrievable murky abyss of the past. we can't get it back, can't right things we did wrong or take back hurts we caused. all we can do is just live i guess. just keep living.
