Some people ride the wave of life without questioning it or trying to change it. They take the good and the bad and that’s that. Some people get thrown onto the wave and, unhappy with the way it feels, gets off it and try to understand how it works, how it thinks and if they can predict it to make their ride that little more pleasant.
I am one of those people who couldn’t wait to get off – the wave I mean, the wave; you people have such dirty minds! ;-) And in consequences, spent many years trying to figure out what was going on in my head, trying to understand why I feel the way I do, what made me become who I am, learning from the bad and growing from the good … and all that nonsense.
A friend of mine came over to visit during the festive season and, as we’re having a discussion on this subject, he said that, basically, I was a) over analysing every single thing and b) constantly complaining about the same things over and over. I know, in some level, he’s right. I mean, after seeing a range of therapists, counsellors and psychoanalysts, I’m pretty good at pin pointing feelings, emotions and triggers in my behaviour. A little like Scrooge, I visited the ghost of my Christmas past, present and future. I have analysed my past, my present and the things I fear from my future. Today, I am extremely clued on about everything that goes on in my mind and in my heart.
The problem I now face is one that never occurred to me: It is not helping!!! When you get to a certain stage in your life, is it too much to want to understand everything, is it expecting too much to constantly trying to understand why you feel the way you do, why you’re struggling so much emotionally. When you work with children – like I do – you try to teach them ways to deal with their feelings by voicing them and identifying them and not suppressing them.
But could suppressing them be the answer to happiness? This friend of mine, just turned 40, he’s content with his life. He has a job he doesn’t really like nor enjoy, but he makes enough money to make it worth him getting up in the morning. He lives with his parents, which makes his life extremely easy. He doesn’t really want to bother with relationships because, he says, it’s too much hard work and hassle – although he went out with me… so I can see how he might think that now lol.
Truth is, today, I wonder whether he’s got it right. I mean, should just expecting very little from the world or from life, is the answer to a happy balanced time on this Earth? Trying to figure everything out is just messing with your head. The problem is, once you’ve done that, once you’ve taken that path of self discovery, there’s no going back. You can’t say: “well, this is just how it is”, without trying to change it for something you believe might be better.
So what about those who do take that path? How do you live your life and get passed it? How do you not let it hold you back? It’s taking me time to stop looking at the past and blame others for what’s going on in my life. I know people who don’t believe that your experience as a child or as a teenager affects who you become as an adult. But you have to move on and after a while, take responsibility for the way your life is going.
And so, that means my life is what I make of it. But if my life doesn’t make me happy, and is a constant struggle, have I made the wrong choices? Should I trust myself to carry on? Or should I do like some of my friends who settled for less. A little less love, less heartache, less happiness, fearing that this, might be their only chance at what they imagined their life to be?
I know so many people in this kind of situations: unsatisfying relationship to have the children they have dreamed about for years; pretending to be someone they’re not to “bag” the person they think they should be with; ignoring each other’s needs so long as the outside front is kept up… I hear those in couples shouting at me that relationships aren’t easy; that they require sacrifices and compromises; that having never lived with anyone myself, I should reserve my judgment.
In reality, I understand and sometimes even envy those who have made that choice. I find being by myself the single hardest thing to deal with, day in and day out. Is it a choice? Yes and no. Yes, as I am choosing not to settle, and no, as the few I have met who I felt a possible contender ended up turning me down. So why do I do it? Why do I stay single and not settle?
Because of that little part of me who constantly, persistently and increasingly will not let me give up on those dreams, on these ideas I have about my life, what I want to achieve and where I want it to go. Maybe I’m just a dreamer and that’s what my life will be, chasing the dream without ever getting there. Maybe I’m just lonely and maybe I’m getting old and maybe I should just stop talking nonsense and get back to work… Maybe I think I’ll do that.
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