A New Year...an Old Past
I can't seem to force the what if's out of my head. They swirl round and round like a ride at a carnival and the ride never seems to stop. Or sometimes it does, and I get off and then the next time it comes around it seems like its going faster and faster untill it's spinning out of control. I guess what I've come to fear is the tradgedy of life. There is so much suffering in this world and even though I'm not around it, it just kills me to know that it's there. Sometimes it hits me when I see someone who is blind or someone in a wheelchair or someone with no hair- that it's real. Suffering, that is. The dilema of the day is not what movie your going to see or how your going to schedule a pedicure appointment in between your waxing and blow dry but just how are you going to make it thru the day? It completely scares me that one day, that there will be an inevitable downfall in my life. There will inevitably be that kind of suffering. And if it doesn't happen to me first it will happen to someone I love and I'll have to watch it. Then I think about all the people starving in this world, or dying of preventable diseases and I see a bag in Neiman Marcus for 800 dollars and I want to vomit. Everything seems unnessecary to me. Stupied even. And though I've known it for years I've come to truly realize the fact that money never has and never will buy happiness, at least my own. In many ways, as I walked thru a ritzy department store this holiday season and looked casually at the price tags of single items of clothing- like a sweater that was 600 dollars, I almost felt bad just being there around that stuff. I mean, we are somewhat well off and that is outrageously expensive for even people considered wealthy. I can only imagine the types of people who actually can afford to pay hundreds of dollars for one item in their closet. It seems like the rich are always getting richer, and the poor are always getting poorer. I have taken so much for granted in the past. I guess maybe I'm realizing now what would truly make me happy. To be healthy in every sense of the word and have meaningful relationships with people who really care about me. All the things I'll ever truly need in this life were given to me the moment I entered this world- and for free. A brain for thinking. Eyes for seeing. Ears for hearing. Legs for walking. A heart for loving. Throw in some good conversation, some laughter, a good meal and I realize I already have so much more than so many people in this world. How could I possibly ever want more?
I'm still finding it hard to make concrete decisions in my life. Choosing a major. Who I want in my life and who I don't. What I'm doing with it. Where I'll end up. I didn't even know if I was going to come back to UF in the spring. It's everything. I can't decide what I want and what I don't.
Sometimes I want to leave here and never come back. Like boom! make a decision and NEVER come back here. I don't want to see the people who never went away to college working behind the counters of starbucks. And all these kids, there parents send them away to super expensive universities and all of them wind up the same place over the breaks. They all come back here to their roots. No matter where they will go in life they will always come back here- this place will always be a part of them. Me on the other hand, I couldn't wait to get out of here because I never wanted to make this place a part of me. I guess I didn't go far enough away and my life isn't that different at all, which is why when I return it just seals the deal that I need to find someplace where I feel comfortable establishing an idenity. But then I wonder- how can you be someone in the present, if you didn't know who you were in the past? Can you really just forget everything, or will it follow you and shape you and mold you your entire life?
I'm still finding it hard to make concrete decisions in my life. Choosing a major. Who I want in my life and who I don't. What I'm doing with it. Where I'll end up. I didn't even know if I was going to come back to UF in the spring. It's everything. I can't decide what I want and what I don't.
Sometimes I want to leave here and never come back. Like boom! make a decision and NEVER come back here. I don't want to see the people who never went away to college working behind the counters of starbucks. And all these kids, there parents send them away to super expensive universities and all of them wind up the same place over the breaks. They all come back here to their roots. No matter where they will go in life they will always come back here- this place will always be a part of them. Me on the other hand, I couldn't wait to get out of here because I never wanted to make this place a part of me. I guess I didn't go far enough away and my life isn't that different at all, which is why when I return it just seals the deal that I need to find someplace where I feel comfortable establishing an idenity. But then I wonder- how can you be someone in the present, if you didn't know who you were in the past? Can you really just forget everything, or will it follow you and shape you and mold you your entire life?