In which I do not LJ cut because I've been away for so long
People like me and that is still really weird to me. While, yes, I still don't understand the romantic (romantic? maybe it should just be labeled "interested") connotation to the word (well I do, but I don't, and that's an entirely different conversation), I also dont really understand the platonic form of the word either. I mean, I'm really hard to keep up with, hardly worth anyone's time, and seriously? I am not the nicest person in the world. Why would you want to be friends with such a fickle, jumbly mess? Tapas and 'tinis tonight with the girls? Try self-help books and a mood ring.
I have these crazy stupid mood swings, where I am filled with the grace of the world and the beauty of the smallest things that make me unreasonably happy in one moment, and then I am completely disenchanted with the entire disgusting human condition the next. I want to cling, to hold on and demand a ridiculous amount of closeness one moment but want nothing more than to indulge in my inner Miss Havisham the next. I want to learn French and sit in the sun and sketch until my palm cramps up and I feel a sunburn on my nose. I feel so safe and worthwhile and smart sitting in my room for six hours at a time, pouring over notes, writing, rewriting mechanisms and biochemical processes.
I never know when these moods will strike or how I'll feel once I'm out with people. Mostly I can stop my mind from saying "what else is going on? are you acting the right way? is this where you're supposed to be? could you be accomplishing something else?" because I worry so needlessly, so heedlessly; and I think about too much unless I'm just not thinking at all. I am at war with myself, constantly, endlessly, trying to want what I should want and not knowing what the hell that is.
But that's the beautiful thing about living life, yes? Learning what to savor, what to throw away, what to back out of and how to do so gracefully. Skinned knees and sunburns in the name of love, life, and just learning who the fuck you are. Is that who I want to be? Do I have to choose between successful and actualized? Sometimes it seems so. College makes it seem so. The big, scary world lurking around every decision you make. Will going to Argentina look like a waste of time or an investment? Will I be able to stand in front of tenured professors and doctors, assuring them that I am worth their while when I'm not sure if I really am? Yes, I want it. I want to work in medicine more than anything. Sometimes, I think, I want it more than I want to be self-actualized, liked, or loved.
Which is when the backlash usually hits. I want this more than I want to be loved? Who would say anything like that? What kind of person must I be to believe this, even for a moment?
I'll tell you. A pragmatist. A product of a generation that says one thing and means another. The clash of a time that required you be one thing or another, never a blend of the two. I cannot want to be loved and successful at the same time because that's expecting too much. Children fascinate and scare me. Love enamors me and sends me into tailspins of anxiety. Friendships, culture, travel, knowledge, success; how am I to manage all of these things when I am just- just me? Someone else should do this. I am not competent enough to be all the things I want to be. I should at least have a course packet to follow, an itinerary that says 'its fine, we have time for you to want this; wanting something because you want it is fine.'
I am the product of knowledge. Knowledge of what I am and what I am not. What I want to do/be and what I should do/be. And sometimes I care, and sometimes I do not, but I am always the vessel for these feelings; that is the one thing that never changes.
Which is why my journal must seem like such a mish mash roller coaster of bipolarity. I'm not bipolar, I hate it when people self-diagnose, and honestly I am very level headed, I am a compulsive thinker even when indulging in bouts of spontaneity, but I am always present. I run at a constant level of anxiety. Worry, I feel, is woven into the very marrow of my bones. It's trite, but I just feel things very viscerally. When I'm happy, I am happy. If I am sad, I am sad. I am aware of it all, and thankful for everything that I am blessed to experience, cursed to endure, and set to puzzle away in the hazy in between.
C'est la vie; c'est tout.
Anyway. The entire reason I started this entry was to say I would love to play with paint.
I think, possibly, next time I'm supposed to have a "party" for something, this is what we'll do. Wine and paint and pictures and wigs and smiles; sounds like a good time to me.
I have these crazy stupid mood swings, where I am filled with the grace of the world and the beauty of the smallest things that make me unreasonably happy in one moment, and then I am completely disenchanted with the entire disgusting human condition the next. I want to cling, to hold on and demand a ridiculous amount of closeness one moment but want nothing more than to indulge in my inner Miss Havisham the next. I want to learn French and sit in the sun and sketch until my palm cramps up and I feel a sunburn on my nose. I feel so safe and worthwhile and smart sitting in my room for six hours at a time, pouring over notes, writing, rewriting mechanisms and biochemical processes.
I never know when these moods will strike or how I'll feel once I'm out with people. Mostly I can stop my mind from saying "what else is going on? are you acting the right way? is this where you're supposed to be? could you be accomplishing something else?" because I worry so needlessly, so heedlessly; and I think about too much unless I'm just not thinking at all. I am at war with myself, constantly, endlessly, trying to want what I should want and not knowing what the hell that is.
But that's the beautiful thing about living life, yes? Learning what to savor, what to throw away, what to back out of and how to do so gracefully. Skinned knees and sunburns in the name of love, life, and just learning who the fuck you are. Is that who I want to be? Do I have to choose between successful and actualized? Sometimes it seems so. College makes it seem so. The big, scary world lurking around every decision you make. Will going to Argentina look like a waste of time or an investment? Will I be able to stand in front of tenured professors and doctors, assuring them that I am worth their while when I'm not sure if I really am? Yes, I want it. I want to work in medicine more than anything. Sometimes, I think, I want it more than I want to be self-actualized, liked, or loved.
Which is when the backlash usually hits. I want this more than I want to be loved? Who would say anything like that? What kind of person must I be to believe this, even for a moment?
I'll tell you. A pragmatist. A product of a generation that says one thing and means another. The clash of a time that required you be one thing or another, never a blend of the two. I cannot want to be loved and successful at the same time because that's expecting too much. Children fascinate and scare me. Love enamors me and sends me into tailspins of anxiety. Friendships, culture, travel, knowledge, success; how am I to manage all of these things when I am just- just me? Someone else should do this. I am not competent enough to be all the things I want to be. I should at least have a course packet to follow, an itinerary that says 'its fine, we have time for you to want this; wanting something because you want it is fine.'
I am the product of knowledge. Knowledge of what I am and what I am not. What I want to do/be and what I should do/be. And sometimes I care, and sometimes I do not, but I am always the vessel for these feelings; that is the one thing that never changes.
Which is why my journal must seem like such a mish mash roller coaster of bipolarity. I'm not bipolar, I hate it when people self-diagnose, and honestly I am very level headed, I am a compulsive thinker even when indulging in bouts of spontaneity, but I am always present. I run at a constant level of anxiety. Worry, I feel, is woven into the very marrow of my bones. It's trite, but I just feel things very viscerally. When I'm happy, I am happy. If I am sad, I am sad. I am aware of it all, and thankful for everything that I am blessed to experience, cursed to endure, and set to puzzle away in the hazy in between.
C'est la vie; c'est tout.
Anyway. The entire reason I started this entry was to say I would love to play with paint.
I think, possibly, next time I'm supposed to have a "party" for something, this is what we'll do. Wine and paint and pictures and wigs and smiles; sounds like a good time to me.