Lately, I’ve had a lot of things on my mind and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking (and pretending not to think by means of distraction). I have spent this time taking stock of my life. From the things I have accomplished and the things I have done and seen and experienced to the people I have met, been friends with, learned to hate, and those I left in a trail of dust in the past.
I think it’s yet another one of those phases of life (one of the first and, undoubtedly, not the last) where I stand at a crossroads looking down all these different avenues I could start down and not having a clue in the world as to which is the right one or even what one is even remotely appealing…Hence, the stock taking.
It seems as though everyone I know is either,
a) finding the person of their dreams/getting engaged or married,
b) having a baby, or
c) already has a job/just found out they got a job.
Every time I log onto Facebook or talk to someone it’s, “Oh did you hear about so-and-so’s (fill in great life achievement here)?”
Me (even if I haven’t): “Yes, yes I did. Good for them.”
Me (what I’m really thinking): I hate them on an elemental level for the next five seconds to fifteen minutes for getting something I want in life.
Nonetheless, what I’m ultimately trying to get at is this: I have been struggling.
Now, I am a relatively proud person so this doesn’t exactly taste good to admit, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
This is my confession:
I look around me and I see my friends and family happy, safe, healthy, and getting their just desserts. I look around me and I see people whom I love and admire accomplishing HUGE feats in their lives after overcoming immense obstacles and are better for it.
I look around me and I think, What in the hell have I been doing with my life? Partying? Wasting time thinking about boys who don’t matter and never will? Sleeping? Watching TV? Nothing?
I look around me and…I’m jealous. And I hate myself for it because I have prayed every night before I fall asleep that these things would happen for the people I love and care about. I pray that they would be “happy, safe and healthy. That they get everything they want, desire, need, deserve and so much more. That they meet and keep the person who is going to love, honor, respect, cherish, protect, defend, support, encourage, and balance them out” in the best possible ways.
God has answered my prayers. So what is my problem?
The answer: I’m human and I want more. I’m selfish and I can’t help but think, What about ME? What about all the good, great, grand, fabulous things that are supposed to happen to me and the person who will walk into my life and do that? Haven’t I hurdled enough obstacles yet to get just one of these things?
My response to myself: “Get over yourself because you have a good life, good friends and good family. You have your health, a great education, a part-time job and people who love and support you no matter what.”
And yet…I’m still not satisfied. Even with all these wonderful things in my life I still feel…less than.
On two occasions, I have attempted to express my thoughts and feelings on this subject to someone else: once to my mom on the drive back to the school I’ll be graduating from in exactly five weeks and once drunkenly to Nicki after one of my “distractions”...worked well, huh?
And here is the true confession:
I don’t feel as if I have accomplished as much in my life thus far as much as those around me or as I thought I would/could have. I have not had any flashy internships with a big corporation or a big name celebrity. I have not been published at the age of 18 like S.E. Hinton. I have not, in essence, done much – or at least that’s how I feel however accurate or inaccurate that may be.
The truth is I sell myself a bit short. I have come a long way from Little Rock, Arkansas where I was born or from Decatur, Illinois where I was raised. I have held a job(s) every year/summer/break since the summer before I turned 15. I have gotten good grades, taken honors, AP and higher level courses than were meant for my age, held multiple leadership positions and participated in sports throughout the majority of my education. I have maintained deep, meaningful, loving relationships with the people who matter to me most and add some new ones to that list. I have, also, managed to graduate college in three and a half years with a Bachelor’s degree, a minor and a certificate.
All of this and I’m still not satisfied. All of this and I don’t know how to fix the way I feel. I don’t know what to do and not knowing (anything) has always been hard for me. I like to know. I like to have a direction and a purpose. I like to know my place in the world and feeling like that place is somewhere doing something good for me and those around me. I like to know who I think I am and what I stand for and how that can help me know the things I’ve listed before them.
I have been struggling. I have been struggling because I don’t know any of these things.
I’m standing at a crossroads. And I’m thinking. I’m listening. I’m watching. I’m waiting for some sign as I go through the motions of “making things happen” for myself (as much as any of us can)…
And then it comes. I’m sitting in class, listening to a writing of Rift Fornier, a friend of my teacher, being read aloud about David Milch’s Problems of the Spirit, a lecture series of five giving advice to writers about living, writing, and living as a writer.
BAM!! Like a ton of bricks, it hits me square in the chest. It warms my heart and makes me feel comforted in a way that no one I know has managed to in the past few months, possibly years.
This is what I hear:
“When you are not writing, you’re going to be sad. You are going to feel inadequate. You are going to feel untalented. You are going to feel incompetent. It’s crucially important to understand that the impulse to write is a reaching out to God.
Words are symbols of reality, but they are symbols that partake of the reality they represent. That paradoxical doubleness is the explanation of how writing is a reaching out to our fellow human beings but also a reaching out to a larger spirit.”`
***
“But the first thing to take away with you is the absolute certainty that nothing you have ever thought about your capacities as an artist is true. This is a fresh beginning.”
Comfort from a stranger who seems to know me from the inside out, who reaches down to my very core to pull out my deepest, darkest feelings that I’ve been feeling for too long. Hope that I will not always feel this way nor am I the only one who does or ever has. You mean I’m not the only person in the world to ever
feel this way? No, get over yourself.
This is God’s honest truth. When I don’t write, I am sad; I do feel inadequate; I do feel untalented; I do feel incompetent. Just as when I don’t go to church or pray or have some sort of connection with God in whatever means it takes to get through the wires to Him, I do not do well.
Writing is my prayer. Writing is my therapy. Writing is my release, my sanctuary, and my passion.
When I have stepped away for too long to “get things done” and “be productive” and “do what needs to be done”, I neglect a huge part of myself. I shut out the part of myself that makes me feel good about myself, that makes me happy and satisfied, that makes me me.
It is my happy place. Whenever, wherever. It is home. It is the place where I know. It is the avenue that gives me direction and purpose. It is my place in the world and the feeling that what I’ve created is something good for me and those around me. It is the way in which I know who I am and what I stand for.
This post, as long as it is, was the exercise I needed to do to reach this conclusion. It is part of the process that points me in the right direction and gives me an avenue to look toward going down as I stand at this crossroads. So really, this was more for me than for you. I honestly just needed the self-administered therapy. Although, I hope you enjoyed it in some way.
