je ne sais pas.

might be a quarter-life crisis
or just a stirring in my soul
[john mayer]

i'm about to ruminate deeply and directly on the state of my life. proceed at your own risk.





i don't know why, but lately i've been feeling profoundly dissatisfied. scratch that, i DO know why. i know WHY i'm dissatisfied, but i don't know if i SHOULD feel dissatisfied, because what i'm going through is just normal for someone of my age and position.

i think part of it is the surreal "letdown" that happens after a super busy time in life. for 5 weeks straight i was working 11 or 12 hours a day, going straight from there to church stuff, my apartment was filthy, and my relationships suffered, but man! was i productive. now that the craziness is over, i first experienced a strong bout of laziness (work claimed my life, now i reclaim it back). now the slower pace of my life seems TOO slow in comparison with the hyper warp speed i was keeping before. i feel like i'm not contributing anything to society. i feel like a lump of sedentary, wasted matter.

this part of my "hmph" stage i can reject, because in truth i feel that we're all way too busy and need to slow down. feeling like you're "unproductive" or "lazy" because you only have 12 things going on in your life as opposed to 37 is ridiculous. slowing down and being quiet is almost a spiritual discipline, in my mind. when i'm freaking out and rushing around, i'm not listening (as well). i'm not in a posture of waiting. listening and waiting are 2 things i could improve VASTLY upon in my spiritual life. who knows, it may even help some of these "fruitless" things i'm feeling . . .

[okay, it most likely would. why am i so stupid sometimes?]

i want to be happy . . .
i want to have the perfect life . . .
i want to have the things i need
and a few things i want
and not "need" or want more . . .
i want to have freedom . . .
i want to be motivated in my freedom.
i want everything.





to be "happy" --- well, it's tricky sometimes, isn't it? or maybe i just make it trickier than it's supposed to be. what makes me unhappy is this feeling that i was meant for so much more. there are gifts inside of me that are unused. there's a magnitude in my soul that wasn't meant to be contained with ceiling tiles and cubicle walls and file cabinets. at the same time, just because i'm not using the gifts I want to use doesn't mean i'm not being used. but that's a hard truth to grasp sometimes.

i'm happy with what's IN me . . . just not happy with my circumstances. and yet, there are people i know, one girl in particular, whose circumstances seem to be perfect. she's always had a boyfriend, her parents give her everything, she's graduated from college but still living at home for no apparent reason other than that it's the easiest thing to do. she has the perfect body, perfect outfits, perfectly (boring) blonde hair, small nondescript handbags that are unremarkable but obviously expensive.

and yet . . . she's unhappy. i can sense it.
despite everything she has, every perfect life situation she's in, she's unhappy. she's unsure. she doesn't know who or what she is beyond her pretty things. so when i stand next to her, even though i'm 60 pounds heavier and with much less expensive clothes, she's unhappy because i emanate a defined, strong, unique presence. i register on the radar of the world in a way that's memorable. she, on the other hand, fades into the background.

happy within but unhappy circumstances.
unhappy within but happy circumstances.
happy all-around : does it exist?

or is it simply that the happiness within must ooze to the circumstances?
i'd rather have happiness within and crappy circumstances, than unhappiness within and perfect circumstances. this much i know.






one night this week i got home early (i.e. before 11 p.m.). i rummaged around and pulled out the 4 most recent Anthropologie catalogs i had. i almost didn't do it because i knew once i started, it would be hard to stop. but i did it anyway. i ripped out the pages with the whimsical kitchen layouts, the beautiful bedding portraits. i arranged them on my bedroom walls, my kitchen hallway. i put them up with scotch tape. i called it decoration. i called it art.

i didn't get much sleep that night, i went to bed later than i should have. but i woke up to my newly art-ified walls and felt a small measure of satisfaction at having done something I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.

that's a luxury i don't have for the larger part of every day in this 8' x 13' office. bless you, Anthropologie. bless you and your free catalog filled with products i could never afford. bless you for sharing yourself in this way with the common woman.




that's all.
that
is
all.