Evolving

Why are women so emotional? I don't really understand this rollercoaster that I sometimes feel I'm riding through life. I don't even like to tell people that because I don't want to be pegged as a psychological basket case, but I think that if we're all honest with ourselves, it's normal. At least, that's what I tell myself on days like today when coming off a fairly good weekend my outlook on life is not quite what it was 24 hours ago. How much has truly changed in 24 hours? The sad truth is – nothing, except my perception of life, a few new realizations about my deepest motivations and conflicting desires. Other than that, really nothing at all.

Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and see myself for who I really am and am astounded in a horrible way.  Like when I hear myself say things like "I'm really annoyed with this homeless guy who keeps bugging me for stuff." Seriously? Annoyed with a homeless guy? You've got to be kidding me. And he keeps bugging me for stuff? Yeah, that guy sucks.  

What's truly beneath my frustration is not a deep rooted hatred for homeless people. No seriously, it's not. It's my own unhappiness and discontentment with myself. I hadn't noticed it recently because I had a pretty big distraction; school. School has been the one thing diverting my attention when I don't want to face the reality of today. It has been my ticket out of here; one I've pursued at the expense of my last free minute. That refuge has been temporarily set aside however. Remember the 29 blissful days I'm taking off?

Bliss has turned to a rather jolting revelation of truth, allowing me to see and feel much more than I had desired. Why do I always find myself back in this place asking the same questions over and over and over and over and over and over? What am I doing here? What do I really want to be doing? How to do I do that? Why do I feel so out of place? Why was I led here if it always comes to this? Is it me?

Looking at my life from the outside, I honestly don't have much to complain about. For all intents and purposes, I really do have a great life with amazing friends and even my family, however taxing, is better than most. For their sake, I hesitate to say any of this. But I think that at the core of every human being, we all ask the daunting questions; the why questions, and the how questions, and the when questions. I believe they keep most of us awake at night. I refuse to believe I'm alone in that.

At times I think that life is one big wrestling match. I battle with a few why questions now, a couple when and how questions tomorrow. Eventually new questions will come about; probably as soon as I think I finally have the answers. I used to think it was always about the answers, about the end, about the finding out and being settled on something. More and more, though, I'm beginning to think it's really about the wrestling, about the honesty and authenticity of not knowing or understanding, about the striving to be and yet somehow knowing you'll never fully become.

It seems far less disappointing to strive for something you know you'll never fully grasp and share that journey with others, than to think you can find all the answers and secretly feel like a failure who alone has never found the end while everyone else carries on.