A Little Clarity

Clarity and perspective...two things I most desparately need in my life. I've managed to find a bit of both here with the public, worldwide posting of some of my deepest secrets - secrets to which even those closest to me in life are not privy. But it has not been enough. Radical life changes of which I've been speaking and all the clutter that has muddled my thoughts has made me search within myself to find sense in the nonsensical. My search helped me to arrive at a decision a few weeks ago: the excess in my life must be cleared before I can get my life's bearings.

What Is Freedom?

Freedom...how do you define such an intangible thing? I'm sure there are many different ways to be free. I myself would define it much differently than most. Freedom is something I'm not sure I'll ever truly have. There have always been shackles around my feet. I am a prisoner by my own hands and yet I cannot escape.

But if I had my way, I would be free. I want to be free from my own insecurities, my secrets, my expectations, my naivete, my knowledge, my fear, my insanity, my obsession, my need for perfection, my obligations. They tie me down. They break my heart. I want to be free to love, to laugh. Free to understand. Free to be myself wholly. Free from compromise. Free to let people into my life, to let them get to know the real me.

Perhaps this freedom doesn't exist. Maybe there will never be a time when I feel free from myself. Maybe this is as good as it gets.

A Cautionary Tale of a Chronic Failure

I wasn't always. There was once a time when I did not simply accept flaws. But now I realize that there is no such thing as a "perfect" life, no matter how things may seem. I was valedictorian, graduated high school with my Associate in Arts degree. I was already two years ahead in college and had been accepted to my first-choice university. I didn't even apply to any others. I had friends who had stuck by my side through thick and thin. I had an amazing boyfriend...my soulmate. I had the most "normal" family any of my friends had ever known. My faith in God was unfaltering. People envied me, I think. I knew even back then that they were mistaken to do so...but now I know that they would be disgusted to know the real me.

I have always had the unfortunate ability to destroy anything good that happens to come along in my life. It wasn't until I moved away to college that I realized I had perfected it. There was a distinct moment that I recall feeling the impending, inescapable failure. I felt it lurking in the shadows of my future. I knew that the crashing down of all the things I was holding up in my balancing act was inevitable. It was. And it came with a force with which I could not contend. So how have I destroyed my "perfect" life? What is so terribly wrong with who I am today?

I hate school. I no longer want to do what I'm doing. I'm going to end up with a $70,000 a year job with too much stress and too little time for my family. Money is not important to me...it never has been. But I tricked myself into thinking it was so I decided to become a marketing analyst instead of an elementary school teacher. My entire life has been a compromise of sorts. Now there is no turning back. I let the one brief moment when I had the opportunity to change pass me by. I'll go on to get my MBA instead of a Ph.D. I'll become one of "them" and I promised myself that I would never be a member of that society. Too little, too late.

My friends no longer know me. My friends and I have always been on different levels, it's true. While they were deciding what new Abercrombie clothes to buy, I was in college classes planning for my future. While they were dealing with the most recent boy drama, the love of my life and I were planning our wedding. While they were watching Laguna Beach on MTV, I was reading The Old Man and the Sea. They may not have understood me, but they at least knew me. Now I feel like I am a world away from them. They all went to schools closer to home. I went to a school much too selective to plan the whole "We'll go to college together and be best friends forever!" We promised best friends forever, but we are all going in different directions now. That, too, was inevitable.

I am destroying my relationship with my soulmate. I have wanted to marry this man since I met him when I was but fifteen years old. The past four years of my life have been spent loyally devoting my time and future to being his wife. However, when I moved away to college I realized that I was rushing my life. I had sacrificed the entire college "experience" by getting two years of college done in high school...but that was so I could hurry up, get married, and have kids. I was rushing my future. I was rushing my self-discovery. I got scared. I was living the life of someone who no longer existed. He is still pushing for all of this, and I still want it...just not yet. I'm afraid his pushing is doing just that, but in the wrong direction. Worst of all, my fears and apprehensions are manifesting themselves into poisonous, self-destructive behaviors. I hate what I've done and I have no way of taking any of it back.

My faith is without hope. I have tried to live the life of a Christian my entire life...with many shortcomings admittedly, but I always considered myself a work in progress. I convinced myself that with all the pressures and circumstances back home, both from outside sources and within my own home, I was unable to live the life I wanted to live. I told myself that once I was out on my own, I would finally be able to become the person I wanted to be. I attended church after I moved to college. I became a member of a wonderful congregation with wonderful, faithful members. But as I realized the person I was becoming, I lost faith in myself. I began to lose hope that I was a work in progress at all. I had become damaged, stagnant, and impossible to love. God tolerates much from the human race. He loves despite disobedience, blasphemy, violence, and worse. But God does not tolerate a person who knows the truths of His word and turns their back upon Him. He is probably desperately reaching out toward me, but I cannot force myself to take His grasp. I know that I will only disappoint and hurt Him more deeply. I am an impossible soul, and for that I am most regretful.

After all of this destruction, I am but a shell of my former self. I am full of dangerous secrets and lies. I am damaged, broken, falling apart. And I have no one to blame but myself. When I was younger, I could blame my sadness, my solitude, on circumstances. I had no one who understood me or who I was. Now I am the one who cannot understand myself. That is the most painful solitude I have ever had to endure. I have ostracized myself from my own life and I am most afraid that there is no fixing this.

There is a piece of advice, a mantra if you will, that I used to live my life by: "Have patience with yourself, find the perspective to see yourself for what you are, and know that you have it in you to persevere." There is no longer anything inspirational here, only reason for more pain. I had patience with myself that I could become someone I liked, but that complacency has helped me to arrive at this very place. I clearly see who I am and exactly what it is that I've become, and it disgusts me. And I know that I have it within me to persevere, it is just that I no longer possess the desire to do so. I have given up on myself.

Self-Medication

It's been a month since my last post and it has been a typical month in my life. So many life-changing events have occurred I don't even know where to begin. First and foremost, I've been insanely sick. Inflamed liver, mononucleosis for the third time this year, strep throat for the sixth, and the news that my tonsils need to come out immediately in order to stop the madness. Surgery? Never fear. This is my third time under general anesthesia and my second serious surgery in two years. Two Decembers ago I had half my thyroid and a tumor that claimed residence there removed. Thankfully no cancer...yet. They caught it before it had a chance to turn. I always found that idea to be so odd. Cancer, tumors, illness...basically mutiny within your own body. But that is beside the point, I suppose.

My constant identity crisis and soul-searching has been drowned in late with a lovely combination of beer, liquor, and cocktails that range from tropical concoctions to the kind that will grow hair on your chest. My personal form of college "experimentation". However, being sick has forced me to take the time to soberly think about the personal issues with which I've been secretly struggling. The drinking has been a concern of mine...one of many at this point. It's not someone I'd like to be, but it is something I find hard to stop. The environment coupled with my own desire to avoid all things serious has motivated my overindulgence. Most people would say, "You're in college. It's normal. There is no problem." They're not the ones screaming at bartenders, punching strangers in the back of the heads, slapping friends, or punching windows. Wait, did I mention I can get a little violent when I'm drunk? Okay. Maybe "a little violent" was somewhat of an understatement. I get crazy. Out of hand. Ridiculous.

Wow. That whole self-denial thing really keeps you from admitting things like that. Moreover I've been thinking about how my self-denial has kept me from facing some of my emotional problems. Most of my adolescence has been spent trying to figure out who I am, who I want to be, and why I always feel the way I do.