What do I want?
What is it I need out of this life to make it worth the living?
What do I really want?
This is a simple question with no easy answer, apparently.
No matter what I do, I cannot seem to figure out what it is I want, much less how to go about getting whatever it turns out to be.
Where does this lathargic response to life come from? Other people seem to have no trouble figuring out what they want, even if they then have to struggle to get it. The struggle makes it all the sweeter when they do finally get what they strive for.
But what to do when you don't really know what it is you want? What would make the struggle worth it in the end?
I know this fatalism is an unhealthy response to the beauty of a day like today. Hot, muggy, the promise of a rip-roaring thunderstorm, lilacs in bloom on every corner, a strong breeze flipping the new leaves and exposing their silver-green undersides to the elements. I went for a long walk, and kept asking myself, what do I want?
I don't know which is more terrifying - the silence or the answers.
I want what I've wanted for the last year and a half. To change who I am and how I respond to the world at large.
Be honest, be honest, be honest. I must remember my mantra. I have to be honest.
There's something my head or my heart wants to say, but I can't seem to make my fingers lay it on the screen. It's like there's this huge wall blocking my view of the truth, or maybe protecting me from it, that I can't seem to tear down or climb over.
It is more than that I want to change, so much more.
How do I change how I respond to the world at large, when I learned so early that the world is not a kind or forgiving place?
How do I allow myself to actually want something, as if I deserve it?
Ouch. That little zinger hurt. This may be hard to believe, but I actually typed that before I thought about it much. Contrary to popular belief, I don't plan everything before I say it here. There are things I erase before I publish, but not much. Kind of defeats the purpose. So yeah, I guess I have to work on this self-esteem thing a little more.
What do I want?
Some people say they know it when they see it. Others know from birth. Others fall into it just by happy accident. And some never do find what they're looking for.
What do I want?
I want the relief of knowing what I want. I want this horrible indecision and vague dissatisfaction to go away.
I want to be different.
And yet, with all that, there is still no direction. No clear path to be followed. Like wandering in a forest, blind and in the dark.
I'm tried of being afraid of life.
The only person I can change is me, and I'm working on that. Little by little, I am turning things around. I wish I were the type to do things in a big way, take huge leaps, giant risks, make mega changes. But I'm not. Try to make me do anything too fast or too huge, and I run. This is why I need a keeper. Someone to gently push and prob me into being better than I am on my own.
There. That's what I want. A guide. A keeper. No, a guide. Definitely a guide. A keeper implies locks and boundaries that cannot be crossed without serious penalty, while a guide shows the way around and through locked doors and passed boundaries. A guide, the good ones, have been there before you and been through all the battles. They know the way, the perils, the pitfalls, the joys, and they revel in the challenge of bringing their charges through to the end of the journey. Side by side, every step of the way.
Too bad guides don't come cheap. Know where I might find one?
Jinx
