Purposefully Yours

This ain't quarter-life crisis because I'm pretty sure I won't get past 60, much less get to 100. Nor is it mid-life crisis, because, well, this has been going on since I was 16. You could say I'm belaboring this confusion and I'm a whiny little bitch who should shut up. And you would be right. Like what I do with most things, I'm overthinking this. I know it, and I know I'm not doing myself any favor but truthfully, a part of me loves wild, stupefying incomprehension. Sure, I don't like it but damn, if I say I don't enjoy it.

Now, the problem with overthinking is one gets too involved in spaced-out, keep-everyone-out, private conversations with one's self. And when I say too involved, I mean, it pretty much takes all the time one has leaving very little to do anything else. Yeap, it's that simple and straightforward. Thinking a lot but not doing enough.

I can't say for certain why.

I did say a part of me loves the pain of overthinking. Of the options I have and the possibilities they bring. Maybe I like the Schrödinger's aspect of just thinking and leaving things as they are but doing squat about it. Because I could be anything I want until I act on it breaking this pitiful illusion-delusion I have. Perhaps because I like being stymied and getting stuck in this limbo, creating an appearance of insurmountable roadblocks that justify my inaction.

It could also be that I'm afraid of confirming I don't have it in me to do great. Like I've always believed myself to be capable of. I wanna blame the family and the environment I grew up in for having very low expectations from everyone that when I did decent with half-assed efforts, I was relegated to being that-guy-we-expect-more-from. Isn't that messed up? (Whoa, that is a good argument but that's a different conversation altogether.) Point is, they made me feel like I could do things, things that would make a real, tangible change. At one point, I wanted to be a lawyer, a forest ranger, a political scientist, a librarian, a community developer, an economist, a teacher. And I ended up being someone my 16-year old self would barely recognize. But I could only put the blame on someone else for too long.

Fuck if I don't say I'm not terrified of knowing there's not much else for me but to live life like this: wake up tired, get bored at work, go out with equally-bored people, buy stuff, wish for the year to be over as I cry myself to sleep, rinse and repeat. I want Santa to be real so bad to tell me "Yeap, you're bound to be just like that, a cynical jerk angry at himself and everyone else". That way, I don't have to burn through the supposed best years of my life with nothing to show for it.

My pining heart says I don't know what I want because I don't have you but hell, no. I don't have you because I don't know what I want and I don't want to drag you in this shitstorm. And shitstorms are bad. I remember saying to myself I'd die happy and content if I get to build a life with you. How romantic and sappy and awfully naive was that. And I'm tired of being a child.

Then there's my laziness. I swear it fucks me up more than anything else I said above.

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Though if I'm being real honest, I'd say I've made some progress. I have a more concrete plan for the future. Y'know, adult vanilla stuff like get my own space in the city in two years instead of paying rent. Go back to school in the same year. Start traveling next year. Engage in community work. Get a house in the suburbs in another 5 years. Buy a small orchard and be a kickass farmer-husband. So it's not all bad.

I understand that life goals can be fluid - shifting as one goes along and experience what life has to offer, morphing as one's perspectives and character change. I guess I'm dissatisfied with the way my brain is wired. That I can't make peace with all these realizations I already recognize as truths. That I didn't get the chance to be purposeful as others were. I know it's wrong to measure yourself against others' progress because we all have different battles but my small brain is having a tough time letting go.

But at the end of it all, it is what it is and there's not much I can do about it. And if you can't do anything about it, don't overthink. Just make peace and move along. Take it from me, I wasted years and years and look where it got me.