All around me.

Twitter posts are saddening.

And I’m not the one in a relationship.

But I feel for both.

/*new thought*/

I think that I’m missing out on the world. On opportunities.

When I’m not being “productive,” more like “busy,” then I’m not taking advantage of what life has to offer.

But the epiphany I had today, with the help of my psych, was that I’m missing out on me.

Sounds corny, but it actually carries weight.

I’m constantly projecting on the outside world, to be this outgoing, friendly, amiable person.

To help anything and anyone with any issue.

To talk and tailor conversations to peoples personalities.

To get along with anyone that is challenging to “deal with.”

Yet, at the end of the day, what have I resolved about myself?

Absolutely nothing.

I am at a loss of identity.

An on-going theme in 9th grade, epitomized by “A Separate Piece.”

Thought that period was over…guess not.

These next few posts may be depressing rambles that don’t make sense.

But I’m just going to spend the next few regurgitating my brain.

Now I would normally say that I’m a pretty happy person. I mean, looking at my blog posts, I have my down moments. And when they’re down, they’re really down. But the rest of the year is mostly about the wonderful things I have the opportunity to do/make time to do/prioritize. Perhaps if I prioritized like that throughout the entire year, I would feel closer to 100% happy all the time.

But the reality of it all is that we can’t always be happy. And we are prone to losing sight of what’s really important. It seems that if the question, “what will make me happy?” is answered, then we’d be good to go. But sometimes we can’t answer that question. Sometimes we don’t know where we’re headed or what we need to do to be happy. Sometimes we might think something will make us happy, but we shove it aside, rationalizing or making excuses why we can’t do/have that thing. Or we just aren’t sure if that will truly make us happy. But how will we know if we don’t try? The key is to keep a balance and have some kind of support, or backbone. In case we want to try something out-of-this-world, then we’d have people to catch us if we fall flat on our face…or so we hope. Sometimes people give up huge parts of their life to create happiness for themselves. Under stable circumstances I wouldn’t do this, but under whimsical, fed-up, or other crazy circumstances, I just might.

I can’t answer where I’m headed or what I really want to do, as nothing is set in stone. I always like having a plan, short term and long term. But over the last year, as I’ve come up with these kinds of plans, they tend to wisp away in a matter of time. The perfectionism in me wants me to be consistent and do as I say that I want to do, a year ago. But I have to do what I need, and not worry about people looking down upon my inconsistent words and decisions. Being a back-peddler or flake are unflattering traits…  I feel like up until this point in time I’ve been as consistent as I could hold myself to my words, but my psychologist says I should try being a flake. Try showing up late.

I have so many chances to do this, but I always show up at least 10 minutes early everywhere I go. My thought is that I respect people’s time to be on time, and I would hope they’d do the same. But everyone always shows up 5 – 10 minutes late. And then I keep thinking how my standards are so rigorous that I don’t even follow the norm of society. People should be on time, but most of society isn’t. So I have to be okay with that. Perhaps I have to conform to the late trend.

A few paragraphs later, I still haven’t answered what really matters now. How do I get my bigger picture perspective back? What I’m doing is fighting my emotional side. This is usually an on-going monthly, one-week battle. So what I have to do is list what I’m appreciative of — I forgot to reflect during Thanksgiving — hopefully this will provide me some kind of forward movement.

• Cousin – strangest but coolest thing is being able to click with my cousin, who has become one of my closest friends. Someone that I know I can call up or talk to any time of day. She always seems to know what I need when I’m down…
• Steady income – to not have to worry about money.
• Volunteering – to have the opportunity to give back in the community.
• Opportunities – to do whatever I want to do (i.e. travel, vacation, etc)
• Health* – well this hasn’t been an especially good year for me and I’ve managed to stay alive…but this definitely needs more taking care of.
• Friends* – while I feel like my closest friends have been pretty distant this year, I still know they’re there. They are my backbone. Sometimes I forget how to lean on them. Sometimes I can’t and don’t know how to. Maybe this requires more practice.

I built my list. But I haven’t got any epiphanies. What matters now is my happiness. What makes me happy — all of the above. So while I have these things, why am I sulky? Why can’t I get out of this rut? Why can’t I focus and do my job?

I need social interactions but I need time for myself. I’ve got to cut back or quit eharmony. I want a relationship but I don’t. I’ve got to figure out whether this can really fit in my life right now. Rather, if I find the right person, how to fit them in my life. But I don’t have that. Yet I want that. SO maybe I should just be realistic. But I need affection. So I’ll go to great lengths for it. Maybe even dupe a few people along the way. It’s okay that I fake myself  into believing it’s real. Because it satisfies and fulfills the need.

Do animals need affection? I just want to pin my need for affection on primitive instinct.

What matters now isn’t something I can answer because I haven’t prioritized. All I can think about is things that don’t really matter, like the amount of hours I have to work in the next three weeks, or about the boy who has come back into the scene and is compelling me to heal quicker, or about the other dates that I scheduled myself to go on when I really don’t want to/have the time/nor genuine interest (shocking!). And I think it all stems from my inability to say “no,” when I need to. To determine where to draw the line before I reach my breaking point. I don’t know my capacity as well as I would like. I don’t want to run at everything that stresses me out, so I keep pushing myself further and further, until I break. How can I determine where I need to stop?

It gets tiring thinking about others. I think that’s why I am where I am. I’ve forgotten about myself again and I don’t know how to re-focus. I never want to say or do something that will hurt others so I am constantly considering how other people feel and evaluating the situation.

So how do I feel? I say that I’m taking on too much, jokingly. But is it really a joke? It’s more than I’m used to. But I can handle it. I’ve handled it for the past three months…

Fuck.

I’m just talking in circles.

I quit.

My consistent volunteering has ended or I’m taking a break until the end of December. I figured I needed to focus on getting shit done for work. But really, now I have no balance. I’m stuck with something that stresses me out and I have no outlet. What I really need is a vacation from work, not volunteering. And I haven’t exercised in awhile. Except today I went for a walk/run to clear my head. But it’s only temporary that I feel okay. Now I feel like crap again.It’s one of those weeks where I need to exercise six hours a day in order to be solid. Perhaps I should eat more fish right now. It supposedly improves your disposition. One time I ate sushi like four days straight and I was super happy. I think this is how my four eharmony dates went smoothly. I must be out of juice.

Anyway, on top of all this crap, one of the one’s I was dating awhile ago (not the strangers/eharmony), emailed me to “check in” and ask how I’m doing. A kind of half apology for not getting in touch with me sooner. So while I feel like he’s trying to make amends, I don’t really know what he wants. And I really shouldn’t care. Because I should be over it all. But honestly, I shoved it all aside when my plate got full of volunteering. How fucking untimely that my volunteer events are on break and he comes back into the picture. It’s like where I was 3 months ago. So I sucked it up and said that I was doing well and super busy (well I was for the past two months). I want to be okay with him. I don’t want to burn any bridges. I don’t want to write him off. But I’m still sore about how he didn’t consider how I felt. The lack of consideration makes me question why I want to be his “friend” anyway. It’s a “no good” kind of situation for me. It doesn’t make any sense. He invited me to a game day next weekend. I like having the option to go, but I have to disconnect myself completely, otherwise I’ll be sore when I’m there. And I don’t want to be sore.

Everything is supposed to be okay.

You would think after nine eharmony individuals and 14 dates in two months, I should be numb to anything relationship-oriented.

Not the case, sadly.

No matter how hard I try, I still get hurt.

I like to say that I’m resilient. But it takes awhile to get there. Like the one that cut me deep. The cut that never healed.

I’m still putting myself out there, ready to get hurt again.

It’s the dumbest thing to do, but for some fucked up reasoning, it’s all supposed to be worth it when you find someone that really clicks.

It’s paradoxical.

And then there’s this roommate of a friend who texts me out of the blue and says we should hang out and I should call him, you know, because he called me the last time.

For some reason, I find this request to be inane.

While I think reciprocation happens naturally or unnaturally, such as this example — there’s gotta be an etiquette for requesting someone to reciprocate. Especially if I hardly know the guy. And he’s 31. He should have his shit together. Hello!?

I wrote to my psychologist today. I pretty much ranted and raved like on this post. Then I hit the 1000 character limit. Twice. It was then that I realized what I really needed to do was just write a blog post.

I think I feel better.

Excuse the poor grammar, punctuation and shit. This pretty much got regurgitated from my brain and spewed out the way I’ve been thinking about it. I’m kind of crazy like that.

How easy it is to go from a high high to a really low low.

I’m moving at the speed of light and managing to grasp little things along the way.

I’ve had such great experiences, living each day like it’s the last –

but it’s not enough.

I thought I had a master plan, but it turns out — it was only a placeholder.

Because now I’m getting more lost in my five billion ideas than actually accomplishing any one thing.

I wish I knew one thing I 100% wanted to accomplish.

One thing that I wouldn’t have reservations about, no matter the opinions of anyone else.

–

I look at my life and all the social interactions I’ve had in the last year.

Everyday my network grows.

I’ve been making up for all the lost time of being an introverted, anti-social pessimist.

By nature, I’m a pro-active, extroverted, social optimist — which only seems to disappear when I’m burnt out.

Such as now.

Now I need my downtime.

Meditation, reflection, and being able to understand where I’m going, how I’m going to get there, and why I’m doing what I’m doing right now.

I feel like I’m moving forward, but just not sure which route is the shortest way to get where I need to be — so I’m just zigzagging and buying time until I figure it out.

But what I do know is what is most important in my life –

building relationships and developing meaningful social interactions.

My life is about exploring, learning, and growing with the people around me.

I look back on my life and remember two people that I have shared an intimate relationship with –

there’s a nostalgia for both of them.

I love them and I miss them in my life.

Even “just as friends.”

I wish they knew.

I wish they felt the same.

But there’s that ego.

That pride –

that seems to get in the way of everything.

Even though 99% of my thoughts are emotionally positive, I can’t seem to shake the 1% that actually hinders me from communicating with them.

I blame my lack of maturity…

or maybe just not enough time has gone by.

Crazy, how things can take so long to heal and pass.

How intense the first one was.

How deep the second one cut me.

I’ve moved forward though, filling everyday with something –

so that it doesn’t remind me of the relationships that I have established, the ones that probably need the most tending to.

Actually, I don’t know if that’s true.

But I spend more time talking to strangers than I do to the closest people I know, or re-acquainting with the ones from the past.

I guess I just need to figure out how much time I need to spend for those that are established, versus those that are new — and allotting myself some downtime…

I have a problem in saying, “no,” which often puts me in a sticky spot.

For instance, this last month, I’m guilty of queuing 4 different people up for four consecutive days (twice).

I can be a social butterfly, but now I’m getting irritable.

I have this thing where I feel like I’m missing out on all these opportunities if I don’t jump on them.

The solution to all my problems would be to just take a breath and slow down.

But often times it’s not even knowing how to take a breath.

1. They prepare and bake haphazardly — without care, without passion, without love; just to get it done.
2. They don’t read directions. They just do whatever the hell they want.
3. They forget that they need to pre-heat the oven. Sticking the mix directly in the oven often turns into a slow and unsuccessful baking experience.