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Mar. 3rd, 2005 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizabethI'm tired of waiting for my life to start. I've spent thirteen years of my life in increasingly demanding academic situations, all presumably preparing me for real life, and while I'm immensely grateful for every one of them, I'm itchy between my shoulder blades and restless up and down my spine. My nerves feel like spanglers glittering across my back.
I read LJ posts about people getting new jobs and new apartments, and I'm envious more than anything else. Not of the jobs per se, or the apartments, as, like, Platonic ideal apartments, but of the way they've done something. I feel like somebody pushed the pause button on my life, and not only do I not know where the remote control is, I don't know who pushed it, and I want to scream at them -- how dare you? My life. Mine.
I'm eighteen, and I feel like I'm exactly where I wanted to be, and where everyone expects me to be, only it's not getting me where I want to be. I don't mind the now, and I liked the then, but I can't feel my way clear to the shall be. I don't need a path, and I don't need a map, and I don't mind ending up in some odd places along the way, and I don't even want to end up where everyone else is. I'd just like some direction. I'm drifting, and I can't get to the oars.
The last three paragraphs have all begun with the personal pronoun "I." That should tell me something.
My definition of myself has always started with my calling, my vocation, of writing. It still does, but that's not enough anymore. I don't know how to find anything else with the same all-consuming need within it. I don't know what else can matter to me quite so much. I want, so badly, just want, simply desire, without an object, or none that I can discern. I'm hungry for experience, for learning, but not simply in order to know things. I want useful information. I want to be able to write source code and legal briefs and short stories with the same ease. I want to be competent, and dream, all at once.
I never want to lie again. Ever. I do it so easily, so casually, but every falsehood makes me worth a little less in my own eyes. I want to keep my promises.
I read LJ posts about people getting new jobs and new apartments, and I'm envious more than anything else. Not of the jobs per se, or the apartments, as, like, Platonic ideal apartments, but of the way they've done something. I feel like somebody pushed the pause button on my life, and not only do I not know where the remote control is, I don't know who pushed it, and I want to scream at them -- how dare you? My life. Mine.
I'm eighteen, and I feel like I'm exactly where I wanted to be, and where everyone expects me to be, only it's not getting me where I want to be. I don't mind the now, and I liked the then, but I can't feel my way clear to the shall be. I don't need a path, and I don't need a map, and I don't mind ending up in some odd places along the way, and I don't even want to end up where everyone else is. I'd just like some direction. I'm drifting, and I can't get to the oars.
The last three paragraphs have all begun with the personal pronoun "I." That should tell me something.
My definition of myself has always started with my calling, my vocation, of writing. It still does, but that's not enough anymore. I don't know how to find anything else with the same all-consuming need within it. I don't know what else can matter to me quite so much. I want, so badly, just want, simply desire, without an object, or none that I can discern. I'm hungry for experience, for learning, but not simply in order to know things. I want useful information. I want to be able to write source code and legal briefs and short stories with the same ease. I want to be competent, and dream, all at once.
I never want to lie again. Ever. I do it so easily, so casually, but every falsehood makes me worth a little less in my own eyes. I want to keep my promises.
Reposted from LJ, 20 March 2009
