to think i started today, well, yesterday, with such an indescribably complete feeling of pure bliss. and now i sit here as the clock ticks towards 4:30, 3 and a half hours before i have to get on the subway for 8 more hours of yoga. i sit here sleepless, paralyzed by a vague sense of foreboding and fear that i haven’t experienced in years, instead of paralyzed by dreams. perhaps im in the midst of some type of emotional boomerang state, but i can’t seem to comprehend why all of a sudden, after what have been 3 of the most transformative, healing, and illuminating days of my life, i feel as though i have failed. i got a diploma in the mail, but still, that dangling newsprnt screaming “what you’re missing” is still etched in my mind’s periphery.
i had an ominous feeling this afternoon that my life was on such an upward spiral that it was almost too good to be true. maybe i brought this negativity all upon myself. or maybe the overachiever in me is resurfacing after years of being suppressed. i know what i want to do, but i feel as though i’m having a quarter-life crisis of the soul. people come and go, our paths ebb and flow, but a part of me feels as though i didn’t do enough. an yet my left brain knows that i have given so much to others. too much, man would say. why then do i feel like i have so much more to give but not enough outlets in which to channel it?
maybe it all ties back to opportunities for growth. columbia as much as it was a glittery bubble of bullshit and fabricated happiness, blessed me with some truly amazing people, but for the most part, immersed me in a cesspool of misery.
i come home and overhear what sound like passages from a hubert selby novel whenever i step outside. drudgery, vulgarity, and ignorance juxtaposed with perfectly manicured lawns and the smell of roses cascading down my block. but behind the bricks lay boredom and vanity, junkies and travesties.
how can i help those who cannot be helped? i try to listen, and i do. i try to talk and be supportive, and i do. but i still feel like i can do more. i just don’t know what. i know i am loved but sometimes i wonder if it’s just another form of self-service masquerading as altruism.
all i have ever been able to trust in this life is my family. and even then, never fully. i suppose scars that i thought had healed were just bandaged. but this consuming sense of abandonment seems to have overcome me and i don’t know wht to do with it or about it. and what hurts the most is feeling as though i have abandoned or hurt others without fully realizing it until now. how much of what i do on a daily basis is for me and not for the world? we gravitate towards what we are good at, but really, who benefits when deep down inside, i still feel as though i have sacrificed myself to the point of mental and emotional exhaustion countless times to nothing truly change. perhaps the changes are too subtle to understand. i can only hope that’s it. or, maybe i’m not meant to see the effect i have had on others, if any, quite just yet. what goes up must come down, i suppose, and vice versa. and when bliss receives a reality check, it’s often for pennies.
i have no regrets in this life, but the sense of being disposed of is something i guess i will never be fully relieved of. and yet i am still fearless. because perhaps deep inside i know i have nothing else to lose. time is just so relative when pain is involved. an eternity can be contained within 2 hours. like all things, this too will pass, so i guess i should hold on to my paddle and just keep wading through the infinite water.
maybe the bigger problem is that i have taught myself to suppress what i feel for so long that now i’m at a loss for how to categorize it all. but then again, what good has logic ever done.
i wish i had the resources to travel the world to “find myself” but why bother? i already know who i am. to live is to do. just how long exactly will it take for me to be able to get going? maybe i just have too much energy and too much much ambition, and far too little time. 12 hours from now i could easily be feeling completely fine.
maybe the real problem is that i was born a woman. fickle, irrational, emotional, bold, and rash. i have experienced so much yet done so little. but what is it really to “do”. is thinking doing? is intention doing? is smiling doing?
all i ever wanted was to enact positive change. i feel as though i’m getting somewhere, but half the time i feel so misunderstood, or simply seen as crazy. i wasn’t meant to live or think inside the box, i know that for a fact.
my don quixote syndrome is swallowing me whole all over again. maybe i just need a good book. maybe i’m misaligned. or maybe the whole problem is that i’m trying to change what i cannot. the people i’ve left behind, the people who have left me behind. obviously you can’t please eveeryone all of the time, but i feel as though within the past year i have been pushed away and rejected by so many people who i counted as friends, who i thought were friends. i suppose i underestimated their acting abilities. or perhaps i am too easily affected by my environment and by others. to blame myself is both egoistic and seld-defeating. again, time will tell. when one door closes, another opens. intuitively, though, i feel as though those doors that closed were nothing more than elevator shafts. so far, the doors that are opening seem to be stairways to heaven.
i’ll just keep thinking that and see what happens.
i was never good at letting go. or being let go. but i guess th lesson i am coming to learn is that it is not only natural, but necessary.
