Take me home!
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007
When I was 16 I thought I had my whole life figured out. I would be in school until I was around 25, fall in love in the meantime, get married once I had graduated, get a great job (as a vet, at the time), travel all I could until I was 30 and then adopt five-year-old children so that I could jump right into being a mom but still have enjoyed my time as a 20-something.
Travelling was key, though. That was something I always thought I wanted to do so much more of, especially after being in France. I wanted to live all over the world at various points in my life, because I felt like I had grown so much after being away. I felt like it had helped me to realize what was really important to me, and to question a lot of what I had taken for granted.
Fast-forward to today, and I'm finishing my third year of university in what has really begun to feel like an extended sort of vacation. I am an hour away from "home" but I have never felt so homesick before. I think I have realized that no matter where you go and what you see and whom you meet, the greatest things a person can know are the things that come from within. Loving a person is, to me, more of an adventure than any trip I could possibly go on; going away you learn about other people's homes, and then you go back to wherever you came from. In love, you discover your home.
I miss that comfortable feeling of being surrounded by my home. I am terrified that one day I will realize that I spent too much time away and now there is nowhere to return to. Because with nowhere or nothing to return to, it makes no difference where you've been or what you've done. And so I will keep on fighting to hold on to what I have, what I believe in, what I know without having crossed oceans to discover it.
Monday, April 16th, 2007
I would love to be able to just say "fine, fuck you, I'm leaving too." And maybe if this had happened a few months earlier I would have done just that.
As it stands, though, I am watching this happen and wondering what else could possibly replace the millions of little holes that your absence will create.
(As of the last two days, this website seems to be one option...)
Sunday, April 15th, 2007
It has been so long since I last updated this site.
I'm not even sure why. It's not that I've been too busy - in terms of school,
things seem to have fallen into place this year and I find myself working more
effectively than ever. It's not even that I haven't had anything to say - I feel
like so much has changed in the past year. Maybe it's that I just can't find the
words to put it all down properly, because what's changing is my perception of
life and its purpose - bigger, deeper stuff that I don't have the vocabulary to
properly express. I haven't even been writing in my own personal journal, which
is weird because it's felt like an extension of my brain since I was seven
(six?) years old and I got my first little book to scribble in. For years and
years, my thoughts would often appear in my head in the form of a note scribbled
on a fresh sheet of white paper - keeping a journal was less of a task, than an
obvious next step because it was all already there, formed in letters and
sentences. These days my thoughts tend to be in the form of questions, and I
find that where I was once so self-assured I am now searching for more - sort of
the opposite way of going about things, but then since when have I ever really
wanted to be conventional... There is one thing that I've been turning over in
my head for a while, though, enough to feel that I can articulate it
semi-decently, and that's why I came back to this site. At what point does
selfishness give way to necessity? (This is what I meant by my thoughts being
questions these days...) Couldn't everything that a person does be construed in
some way as being selfish? (Wasn't there a Friends episode about this?)
In an ideal world, everyone would put themselves in the other person's shoes,
and really care about how their actions are affecting others. In our
world, it's starting to seem more and more as though that kind of thoughtfulness
doesn't exist - at best, it's fleeting. In the end, we're all only watching out
for ourselves, and doesn't that make for a terribly lonely predicament? Maybe it's just that most people have long since
realized what I'm only just starting to - that you can give and give and give
and you won't necessarily see most of that coming back to you, and that it will
never really be enough anyway. Our society is structured in a way that rewards
those who seek personal wealth and recognition - and that implies that the only
way to win is to be selfish. I always thought that there was more to it than
that. I guess I still do, but trying to live that way is just plain exhausting.
I feel empty at the end of the day, like I've given too much of myself and
haven't received in turn. I like to be the kind of person that gives without
having been asked, but for once it would be so wonderful to be on the receiving
end of that sort of benevolence. I have been told to live according to the
Golden Rule but somehow it never comes full circle and I am becoming cynical
trying. I have been told that I am "strong" by so many people, which
is supposed to be a compliment but is really code for "...which is great
because that means that I don't have to be, I can just lean on you." The
truth is that there is no end to it, that people will take and take and take and
then leave you in the end and you will have nothing to show for it but a lot of
good will. "Leadership" is nothing more than a highly developed
ability to use others to your own advantage, and yet that is the ultimate goal
for so many of us. We're taught to want more than we have, always...it just gets
me down, when I really think about it. Maybe now that I've written it out here it won't
bother me as much. But then now maybe I've made you think about it...how selfish
of me...
Back to the Peanut Gallery
Back again.