Wish I Could Be, Part Of That World

I’ve been feeling so uninspired lately. Not necessarily lazy, although I’m sure that’s part of it, but more just unsure of how I would like to be spending my time. Nothing seems very appealing. I’ve already started to feel pretty apathetic towards school despite my interesting classes. I’m having trouble keeping my mind focused on any topic long enough to want to write about it. I have a two page "to-do" list, but am more interested in making the list than actually accomplishing anything on it. I’m just very restless and unmotivated all at once. It’s a really dreadful feeling.

In truth, I just want to scream. I’m sure that sounds really rather insane, but sometimes I think it’s the most helpful way to get over things, to just yell as loud as you can. I can’t though. Somehow, I can never really allow myself to scream or cry when I need to. I can never allow myself to just be free with my emotions. Right now I’m just feeling trapped. Trapped in my house, in my life, in my skin. Do you ever wish you could just escape yourself?

Often I think that if I were braver, I would run away. Not really from anything or to anywhere necessarily, just away from here. I would just go for the sake of an adventure. There’s been a real lack of that in my life lately. Everything’s become so routine and I guess I feel as though I’m twenty years old and not ready yet to settle for such a mundane existence. There’s so much I want to do and try and I feel stuck in this stagnant waiting place between college and the "real world." I like school, but I would give it up in a second if something more exciting came along. Well, exciting and practical.

Therein lies my trouble. I’m too practical for adventure. It’s a really horrible place to be in, this head of mine. Everything in me is ready for something new and mysterious except my head which keeps me planted in school. I spent a lot of my life criticizing my brother for his life choices, but truthfully, I wish I was more like him. I wish I could just say "fuck it" and follow my heart the way he does. I wish I didn’t care what people thought of me. I wish I could be more confidant in my instincts and not second guess every move I make.

I’m not like that though, and all of the wishing in the world won’t get me any closer. Kurt Cobain said "wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are," and I suppose that’s true. I suppose sitting around dreaming up the adventures I could have if only I were different is a complete waste of time. If anything, it only distracts me from the adventures I am having just by being alive, just by being me. Still, I can’t help but want more.

I used to think that the Little Mermaid was so selfish when she said that. Seriously. Even at five years old, it seemed so wrong to me that she had all those "gadgets and gizzmos a-plenty" and "whose-its and whats-its galore." You want "thing-a-ma-bobs?" She’s got twenty. But who cares, no big deal, she wants more. It seemed so wrong somehow, but more and more I’ve grown to understand Ariel. Somewhere out there is a world full of mystery and wonder. It seems the bigger my world becomes, the more I begin to crave more, the more I want to make it even bigger. It’s never enough is it? Life. Why is it that so many of us can’t ever seem to be content with what we have?

I don’t mean for that to sound critical necessarily. I don’t particularly think this is negative. It’s just an observation about human behavior. We set goals for ourselves, our lives, and then work towards them. If we fail, we feel bad about ourselves and either give up, or try again, or spend years in therapy trying to decipher why we failed in the first place. If we succeed, we then set new goals to either fail or succeed at, and we continue to work towards these higher aspirations, but where does it end? I wonder if there is some sort of means to an end or if we all just keep dreaming of places and things beyond our reach. I wonder if I’ll ever stop yearning to be part of that world, that mysteriously grand world filled with adventure. I wonder if I’d even recognize it when I arrived. Perhaps I've always been a part of that world, but have been too practical to notice.