In the past few weeks, I've worked like crazy at work, and I am recently able to enjoy the fruits of my labor with a slight bump up in my finances (though the forbearance on my student loan payments also helps with that). So I can sit back for a little bit and reflect on what it is that I want out of life.
I want a life, basically.
Since last year and getting fired, I have been "out of the game," so to speak. My romantic attachment to a coworker there came to naught, mostly because I was, to use the proper English term as handed down to us from Dr. Samuel Johnson himself, a "pussy." Too many times I've come close to an emotional connection with someone; too many times I've managed to talk myself out of it or screw it up.
That ends now...or a few months from now. No, now.
Fear, of course, is a powerful emotion, as anyone who makes horror movies can tell you. It's always easier to not go into that spooky-looking house (though granted, the movie is really short and you end up feeling cheated. A buddy and I once traded ideas about how to make the world's shortest horror movie). Fear is based sometimes on experience, but most of the time it comes from the unknown, from the never-dreamt-of possibilities that your worst fears might not be realized, or at least not in the way that you imagined. Sometimes it's worse to do nothing than to do something, because even if you end up in some crazy ghost's Human Souffle, at least you're able to tell your figurative self that you tried.
I suppose it's wrong for me to air family laundry, so I won't go into details, but I have noticed that the inability to act is something of a family trait, whether to ask for help when you need it or just to be more assertive about what it is you want from another person. For a long time now, I've put my wants aside for others, mostly family, who need me to be there for them, and I don't regret it. But a central thought keeps coming up, doing its best to rob me of my satisifaction at another selfless act (though if it were truly selfless, would I take anything from it like that?). When will it be my turn?
I hope soon, or at least I hope to know soon. For now, of course, I must continue on, carrying a load that has seemed less oppressive of late, the burden of being stuck in a situation where the distance between what I want and what I have seems to be hard to cross. But I got a lot, so don't think this is anything more than a former English major's lament. I'm good, now I'm ready to be great.
I want Chuck Norris in the Octagon! No holds barred! ;-p
