| I heard somewhere that it�s okay to want more. I guess that means that I can want more, as long as I don�t want too much. I don�t think I want �too much�. I want it all. I want a temperate climate. Light pants weather. I want chicken salad with JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF MAYONAISE. I want to wake up in the morning without my alarm clock and I want to have had exactly enough minutes of sleep. With happy dreams. And the excitement of waking up. The kind of excitement you feel on the days you wake up with a purpose, and the knowledge that it will be absolutely fulfilled. I want to eat healthy and be satisfied. I want to exercise and not get fatigued. I want to do my job everyday and go to bed every night having accomplished something. I want to sleep regular hours and I want to do it as soon as my head hits the pillow. I want to feel content. I want everyone on the road to obey my rules of driving. I want to get where I�m going, no matter what, at least 3 minutes early. I want to hear my favorite song on the radio. I want to believe in unconditional love. I want to believe that this world was created by something bigger than science and know that I�m taken care of. I want to feel secure with my loved ones. I want to trust like a child. I don�t want to feel like I do everyday. The feeling of having just realized that things weren�t intended to stay �that way�. The feeling you get the day after you feel great about something. You go to bed one night with a smile on your face and wake up to your alarm clock, after getting exactly the wrong amount of minutes of sleep. Your purpose is lost, the outlook is grim, and you�ve lost sight of the future. The feeling is indescribable because up until this very moment, weeks and months later, you had no idea what it was. It�s the absolute realization that things really aren�t great, probably never were and most definitely never will be. The slow, steady sinking of that great happiness into your stomach where it will interfere with everything that you eat and fog up your judgments. You feel dazed and unsettled. It could be depression, but it�s really just a gloom. You know better than to call it depressed, because it�s really just life. It�s reality. It�s the way things are and the penalty for thinking that things would be different from now on. It can come after the first snow, the snow that can get you out of bed at 12:30am just to look at it�s beauty. The trees are pristine, your breath is white, your eyelashes are dusted and you�re in love. You feel like this is what you want always and as long as everything stays just like this then you�ll never be wanting for anything else. You wake up the next morning and you have to clean off your car. Or carry around extra socks. Or deal with the pneumonia you got from running outside in the dead of night to play in the snow. It can come after the first time you realize you�re in love with someone, the kind of heart-stopping, breath-taking �this is it and the world is mine� in love that you think will change the world. Love is a funny thing though. The problem is that it involves other people and they never know how to act accordingly. It�s like the first time you have sex with someone. It�s awkward and clumsy. Kind of uncomfortable for everyone involved. But it�s beautiful. It�s only going to get better too. By tomorrow they�ll always know what you�re thinking, and what to do. And the initial clumsiness will pass and as inconceivable as it may seem, your bodies really will fit. It�s disappointment really. It�s taking off your rose-colored glasses. It's realizing that people really don't want to know you beneath your clothes and under your mask. It�s noticing how things really are. The confusion comes in with the unwillingness to realize your realization. In the stubborn clinging to the idea of happiness and perfection. The idea of a bouquet of flowers just because. Breakfast in bed. Stuffed animals. Backrubs. Surprises. Sunsets. Picnics. Bubble baths. Candles. Romance. It comes from the ability to build a set of assumptions on one little three-word phrase or one short-lived action. Put meanings into things where meaning has no right to go. It comes from having expectations. Expectations are ugly things. When expectations are met, it�s seen likes it�s how things are supposed to be. Any time expectations are met it should be seen as an accident and if they aren�t met it should be taken at face value, for what it is: just the way things are. If it�s taken any other way, disappointment will ensue. In fact, you�ll do better not to have any at all. I�d love to talk to the person without expectations. How happy and content he must be. It seems I only feel happy and content when accidents happen. When what I want is met or surpassed. Those are the nights I go to bed with the smile on my face. Those are the mornings I wake up and feel down and I just don�t know why. It�s because when I get all that I want and I feel like everything is right in the world I�m dead wrong. It�s hard to face that. It�s hard to be okay with that. It�s hard for me to see perfection as an accident and not my right. It�s especially hard when a plan for the future is built upon an accident. Something that can�t be counted on. Something that can�t be re-created. I feel sad everyday because it has settled on me and has settled hard. The fact that life isn�t what I want it to be. Because love isn�t what I ask it to be. Because reality isn�t perfection. It�s a strange feeling, the first time it occurs to you that you can think of nothing in your life that makes you happy. Always, there will be some things in life that are good and ought to bring a smile to your face, but search as you might nothing makes you HAPPY. I know that I ought to count my blessings. After all, I�m alive. I�m fed, clothed, sheltered, educated, loved. I have more than I need. My life is going places. I have books to read, a kitty to cuddle, a therapist to talk to. �A boyfriend who can bring me a rose.�(oops, scratch that!) Being able to find fault in all of these things should not demote their blessing status. But it does. Another strange feeling, after having been asked 100 times in a week if suicide had ever been considered, is realizing why it�s never been an option. Not even a thought. It�s because of guilt. Because too many people are counting on me. How could I enjoy death with all that pressure? The same way I�ve been enjoying life lately, I suppose. Hardly at all. Unconditional love is a funny thing. I don�t think I believe in it anymore. I mean, if I dropped out of school, got knocked up and got arrested my parents would still love me. It would be a different love though. A disappointed love that says �if I wasn�t required by biology to love you unconditionally, I wouldn�t love you at all right now.� That isn�t unconditional. The condition is �I have to.� There are so many conditions in life. So many people to let down. So many incorrect paths to chose. So much pressure. How can I have any idea if I�m doing what is right. Especially when I feel all the time, from every different direction, that the pressure is on. That they�re counting on me. That I�d better do what they EXPECT from me. I have no idea what would happen if I just let the ball drop. Would it wake everyone up to the realization that expectations are for fools? Or would it wake everyone up to the realization that I�m not half as wonderful as they think I am. It�s an unfair double standard. I�m expected to do what�s expected of me and fulfill the roles and paths that have been laid out in front of me. I�m expected to do the good thing, the right thing, the perfect thing. Better is expected out of me. I wake up everyday with the weight of 1,000 expectations on me. And it�s expected that this be done uncomplainingly. It�s expected that I not ask for anything in return. I can�t expect anything in return. I go to bed every night with the weight of 1,000 of my unmet expectations on me. |