Questions on Life

Life. I find I walk around in life questioning everything around me. Almost never do I simply walk down the road or to class and just listen to my music or think of things I have to do. Instead, I find that I watch those around me and I ask questions.

The question I asked myself today . . . what is the point of life? And yes I know that is that one question that every philosopher tries to answer but I don't ask from the way they want answers- as to why we exist. My question is what are we supposed to do with the life we are given? Why do we go to school? To get a degree so we can work? Why do we work? To earn money to live? But then what is living? Is living simply going to work, earning money, and taking care of our needs? But then why do we stress so much to take care of the sick, the weak, and the ones without love or a home? Why do we make such a hassle and big deal over death? Why do people tell others to not kill themselves? Why do we try to save those around us? Is it because life is sacred? Why is it sacred if our only purpose is to supply for our needs so we don't die?

What is that? Is that life? Do we only live so we can suffer through school and work and maybe sometimes have a moment of connection with others that leads to smiles and laughter? But why is this desirable? Why do we want this? Why do we desire to connect to others when in reality we are animals and our only true need is to supply for ourselves?

Do we only supply for ourselves so we prolong death? Why are we afraid of death? Why are we afraid of pain and hurting? Yes, I understand some argue it is an evolutionary trend that we came to acquire a fear of pain to protect from harmful things. But why do we avoid harmful things if the only purpose of living is to supply for our needs and run from death?

These are the questions I contemplate. These are what lead me to wonder about us people and have a strong desire to learn why we are who we are and why we do what we do. . . It is psychology. But during all this I still wonder about myself and about this thing called life. This thing of breathing. This thing of hearts beating and blood flowing. This thing of thoughts and movement. Why do we have needs for adventure or discovery or to be known or to know or to love or to even simply be at peace?

Honestly, the only answer I have for this is the one thing I always seem to come back to. The one thing I grew up in. The one thing that makes sense to me. That we were created for a relationship with God. To experience his love and power as a human here on earth and he as a being all around us. (The only time we will ever be able to experience him not being face-to-face as we will be in heaven). The only thing that makes sense to me is that he gave us these innate desires to explore the world around us because he gave us this world to enjoy. This is what I keep coming back to. And to what I cling.

"Emerging Adult Crisis"

Ok... I know I am supposed to be studying right now but I am unable to focus if I don't share my mind.

The year is about to come full circle. Summer is approaching. We finally have sun and can see the swampy ground for the first time in 6months here in Minnesota. But with the sun comes not only joy of an approaching summer but also a bitterness as I realize everything is coming to an end. Things have come full circle. Things are bitter. There is not a joy of coming freedom on the wind. Instead, this wind brings an end. An end to the free-spirit I once held last year as I watch my friends slowly lose control of their lives... as my friends are now beginning to live the consequences of their choices from last summer. And it makes me want to collapse. To collapse into a heap on the floor and give up. Life is too much. It came too much at once. I have expectations and desires to either side of me coming from my childhood, my parents, other adults in my life, my boyfriend, my own mind, my heart, my family, my siblings, my world. I don't feel overwhelmed. That is not the issue. I feel, instead, as if everything I do leads to more and more failure and learning. I feel as if I can do nothing properly or in the way others expect from me. I have people expecting me to heal quickly, to pursue my future goals as fast as I can and on time, I have people expecting me to do everything correctly and in the right order, I have expectations to make up my mind soon on topics I don't want to feel rushed in. I have people accusing me of being unable to make up my mind or relying on others too much. I have expectations placed on me to commit and settle down in a way that prevents exploration of life and enjoying the journey. And then I have to sit back and watch my friends try to cling to last summer and the freedom they had, they felt, and the fun they experienced while I am forced to grow up faster than I have ever wanted to.

Neither of these situations are good. Neither are beneficial and I don't know what to do anymore. And the problem is, I have several different suggestions coming from many different sides of me and from numerous different angles.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't want to be like my friends. I don't want to cling onto something I know is slowly vanishing from between my fingers. I don't want to give away my hopes, dreams, aspirations, and morals for a moment of what seems like freedom and in pursuit of something I know will only leave me tattered, shattered, and broken on the rocks.

But what I do want is freedom. I want discovery. I want adventure. I want a moment to myself. I want to know myself better. I want to know what I want in life for once instead of what I think will be a good decision. I want an experience with myself that will allow me to know what I desire from this life. Because right now, my desire for this one thing blocks out every other desire I may want in my life. Right now, I am following blindly a path I made for myself several years ago before many life changing things happened.

Have you ever felt this way before? Have you ever wondered what you are doing with your life? Some call it a "midlife crisis" but it is surely not one for me. Maybe it is an "emerging adult crisis". Ya... that's what I'll call it. An emerging adult, I have no idea what I'm doing because no one ever told me what to expect, college life crisis. Why couldn't school have actually taught us something useful? Like how to balance a check book, or how to write a resume/cover letter, or how to do taxes and sign a lease or take out a loan or even how to find a good/decent job. Those would have been good things to know/learn. Oh well. I'm just glad I have been slowly finding people to help with those things. The only sucky thing is that since I am a senior next year (because of my credits) I have even less of an amount of time to learn about how life works while other kids normally have about 3-4 years. I have 1 year. Maybe that's why I've been feeling so overwhelmed. Hmm. Now there's a thought. :P

Hope

Sorry that it has been about a month since I posted. It has been a rocky, rough past couple of weeks. I had a mental breakdown a little over a week ago and am still recovering from it. This past month was rough in every sense of the word and never had I felt so alone. It came to a breaking point where I realized there was nothing I wanted to live for anymore. Again, I was brought to that place of desperation, hopelessness, and loss. It scared me. And not because of the feelings. It scared me because it felt all too familiar. It felt too known and too understood. It scared me because I realized that over the past few years, I really hadn't come as far as I believed or hoped I had. My boyfriend found out the following day and decided that he wasn't going to talk to me for the rest of the day until I told someone.

Obviously I know what you're thinking. Seriously? Why would you just stop talking to an extremely depressed, borderline suicidal person? I don't know. And I don't care what his reasons were but I definitely let him know how much it hurt.
I did end up talking to my parents though. They know my past but they didn't really think anything was continuing or was as bad as it had been. But I made sure they knew it never really ended. We discussed plans of action and things and after a trip to the doctor, I am now on a high dosage of vitamin D (since I was very deficient) and a bunch of other random supplements and vitamins. And I am now to give it 12 weeks. If things don't work well, then I'm to go back in and discuss depression medications and other options.

This past week was semi-refreshing. It has been an interesting week. But I have to say I have been blessed by people. My first day back from break I ran into literally every person I know on campus (which honestly is not very many but still). The rest of the week I keep seeing people and I have been staying in fairly good communication with others so as to not be alone. This past week-end I got to hang out with my boyfriend for the first time in awhile and it was nice. One of the first times in the past few months where we weren't fighting and were actually happy.


So ya. That was the month of March in a nutshell for ya'll.

Peace.

"A man begins to die when he ceases to expect anything from Tomorrow." ~ Abraham Miller

Everything Changes so Quickly

Life changes so much in such a short amount of time. It is something that we can never truly predict but the very same thing we call mundane or boring. Life wasn't anything I expected it to be when I was a child. You grow up. . . I grew up. And I realized the way you may view something as a child takes on an entirely different meaning when you're older. I realized the very people I thought I knew, I really didn't. And how much they can change over the course of even just a year. I've realized I don't know what I believe or think anymore. The few sure foundations I had in my life have either turned their back on me or gone down a track completely opposite of me. Life is something that confuses me and I've realized that in the last few weeks I have fallen back right into the old thinking and old feelings that I was stuck in for years and promised myself I would never go back to. I have begun to see (again) no light at the end of the tunnel. I have begun to see that I truly have no plan for my life and I have begun to see that everything I thought I knew was a lie. I have begun to have no hope of a better life because everywhere I look there is pain, disease, death, crying, weeping, and loneliness. I've come to the point (again) where I just want to give up on life. Where I feel, that for once in my life, I am allowed to be selfish.

But at the same time I know that would be foolish. I have been there before and I have seen the outcome from that. Do I really want to deal with that hassle again?

I feel alone in life. I have no hope in life. I have lost friends. I have friends who have been corrupted. I have my own self questioning things and doing things I would have never thought I would have ever done. But in reality. It's not the acts that make me feel bad- it's the thought of what would everyone else think. When in reality that shouldn't bug me because they are who they are and their opinion of me doesn't matter. If they don't know me then why should they judge? But then I also think........ they probably wouldn't even find out, know, or care. I'm just afraid they will.

I don't know what to do anymore. I have lost hope in humanity. All hope. I have lost trust in the very people I used to trust with my life. I have watched as my few friends I have had in my life have slowly been torn away from me... little by little. And it saddens me. And I feel lost. I don't know what to do anymore except curl up in a blanket and cry and never come out again. Because honestly. . . that seems like the only solution.    

Deep Breath, Get Up, Dust Off, and Begin Again

So much school and so must stress. These last few weeks never seemed like they would end. Actually it came to the point that I just broke out laughing while my boyfriend just broke down in tears. The amount of things that seemed to happen in not even a weeks amount of time was just.... seemingly impossible. I swear we made a new record of all the bad things that can happen in a week. First it started with my boyfriend calling me on Monday night of last week telling me that he lost his credit card and couldn't find it. He had it the night before but was missing it. I told him to check his car (since he had already checked everywhere else) but being that is was really late he said he would check on Tuesday. Tuesday came and he called me again and started telling me how he got a random parking ticket for apparently missing his front license plate on his car. . . . which happened to have been stolen. On top of this he couldn't find his credit card. This then rolled into that night when he broke his phone charger (it got ripped out of the wall). The next day (Wednesday) he accidentally left his phone in his car overnight (and if any of you know how cold it gets in MN in February, then you know it is extremely cold at night and just about everything freezes). His phone then decided to rebel and some of the buttons no longer work. The next thing that happened, was his mom decided to take his car and give him hers as they tried to figure out the license plate situation. After this I got a call from Ian on Friday (Valentine's day), he began telling me he received another ticket for apparently parking next to a fire hydrant which was completely buried in snow and which you could not see. He was not happy after this- obviously, as any normal person would be. On top of this, Sunday his car wouldn't start. We had to try to flag down somebody to come help us jump it. No one seemed to have jumper cables but thank God we found someone who could drive us to a gas station to buy some cables in order to jump the car. By the time we got back it was 1 in the morning. The next day (Monday), he found out he missed a mandatory meeting for ROTC and had to figure all of that out. At this point I just couldn't handle it. Nothing seemed to be going right and I just literally failed a test and did horrible on a paper and had two more tests coming up that week. Ian just broke down crying.

Life seems to be way too stressful at times. I know this may not all seem that stressful but within the short amount of time it happened, it was very stressful. A week is too short of a time to deal with so much stress as well as school and in my case, having to also act as a therapist for several of my friends who were also having very bad weeks. Me and Ian just basically came to the point where we couldn't take it anymore. So as a summary. Let me review that week in a little diagram.

Monday:
-Lost credit card

Tuesday:
-Parking ticket
-Stolen License plate
-Broken phone charger

Wednesday:
-Broken phone

Thursday:
-Traded cars

Friday:
-Another parking ticket

Saturday:
-nothing thank God

Sunday:
-Car wouldn't start/ dead battery
-Finally found someone to help

Monday:
-Missed mandatory meeting

Despite the amount of stress, this week has taught me something. Things happen that you can never expect to happen. Life is full of the unexpected but it's how we chose to react to these unexpected turns that makes us into who we are now. I found that I tried to keep a very positive outlook on life during this time when normally I would just have accepted my fate and dwell in self-defeat. And I found that that is what truly allowed me to recover. I had faith the Lord was going to provide and things would be ok in the end. This gave me so much peace throughout the whole week even though I was stretched to my limits. Ian was stressed to the point he just broke down. I remember him laying on the floor in my room telling me he was done. He didn't want to ever get up again and how he was giving up. I told him that giving up means you are never going to try again. I told him he wasn't giving up and he hasn't given up yet. That I need him and that it will all get better in the end. Whether that be in a day, 2 days, 4 months, or 10 years.

This last week (following the horrible week) though, has honestly been a good recovery week. Still stressful but a lot less shit happening. It has been a chance to take a deep breath, get up, dust ourselves off, and take another shot at life and continue on down the road. Because honestly.... that is all you can do and need to do in life sometimes. Accept the difficulties but still chose to arise and not let them knock you down.    

1/3 Past, 1/3 Future, and 1/3 Present

So as I sit here and attempt to catch up on my reading for a psych class I can't help but let my mind wander. I had a sudden urge to type. . . and just type. I haven't written in a while either and decided that it's probably time to update the blog. This semester has gone by fast and is going extremely well. I'm glad that I have finally moved out because it has given me a chance to be on my own for once. I have also been meeting so many new people and my classes are good. I honestly love the university and seem to have not enough time on my hands. I don't know how that is because I have the same amount of time I did last semester but I really feel as if I have no time. It's quite frustrating at times.

The only down side that I've had being further away is that I never get to see my best friend. Since she doesn't drive, it's hard to find time to see her. I saw her this week for a few hours for the first time since way before school started. It was fun and nice but then I realized how much I miss her. How much I miss having someone in my life that knows me better than I know myself. Someone who I can be completely real with on every level. Now grant it, I am meeting so many cool and awesome people but a lot of them are still in the category of 'friend' and not really in the close friend category. Though I did meet one girl who I just clicked with instantly. She's like awesome and we get along really well. I'm just saddened at the same time because I don't want to feel like I'm replacing my good friend of many years. I don't know how it's going to be next year though because my best friend will probably be in New York for school . . . . so quite a distance. You never know though and I'm not going to dwell on the future because none of us truly know how it will turn out.

That is actually something I've truly been dealing with recently. I've never really been the type to dwell on the future because too many times have I had my hopes and dreams dashed upon the rocks of life and reality. But recently I have found myself daydreaming about life and I keep having to bring myself back to reality and to remind myself that the wonderful future I have fantasized about may or may not happen so it's pointless to think about it. But sometimes that is all that gets me through the day. . . the thought of my future. But also sometimes it brings stress and uncertainty upon my thoughts. And that is harmful. Why stress over something that is not yet upon me? Why can't I live more in the present? I used to really live in the past. For years I did and that was beyond damaging to my mind, soul, and heart. But now I feel I am in the opposite extreme. I dwell in the future more than any other and that's damaging as well. . . I've really been trying to train my mind into evenly splitting into all 3 realms. 1/3 in the past so I don't make the same stupid mistakes again, 1/3 in the future so I know what my goals are and I have hope when times get tough, and 1/3 in the present so I can focus on achieving my goals and creating lasting and meaningful relationships with people. That is what I yearn for. That is what I desire to have.

Change

Life has changed so much. It has changed so much even in the past few months. I feel as if I have grown up. As if my mind has been opened to the world around me and I see how much bigger the world is. How people live. How people communicate. How they do relationships. How they talk, speak, laugh, cry, and respond with nothing but their raw soul. I have seen how such small choices or actions can have such a huge impact on someone or myself. I have met people, new people, and I have gone on adventures with yet others. I have experienced true acceptance. I have experienced community and friends. I have experienced what it means to walk, to breath, to laugh, to cry, to care so deeply for someone, to be excited, to wait in anticipation, to not care about people’s opinions, to be free, to sneak out late at night, to stick your hands out of a car with all the windows down driving on a road through the woods with the mountains in view. I have experienced for just a short time in my life- happiness. I looked forward to the days ahead and to the people I could be with. Depression was something in the back of my mind; still there, but not nearly as forefront. I yearn for that again. I yearn for the warm summer days and the bustling summer nights. They seem so far away now and yet still in the forefront of my mind. I genuinely miss every single person who was apart of that because now it seems so far away. It seems as if we have all moved on with our lives and college and significant others. I am saddened and I’m scared. . . I’m scared of growing up. Of having to have my life planned out, and having to pay attention to bigger things. What ever happened to those days when I could have my hair down, flowing in the wind, short shorts, loose t-shirts, bare feet, warm air, sun on my face, not a care in the world, jumping into wooded lakes, running on railroad tracks, drunken midnight fishing and casino visits, dancing crazily with my friends, running through the rain, long walks through the beaten down trails in the woods, biking half way across town because you had nothing better to do, country drives, planning our futures, discussing life as if it will never change. What happened to freedom? Now I feel like a captured fish. One who swam the seas but now sits wearily in a bowl on the counter. I am truly melancholy. I feel as if I enjoyed the days but they went by way too fast. And I feel like it was a summer never to be repeated because now. . . now I am expected to grow up. I am expected to have plans, to work, to graduate from college, to go to graduate school, to think of a future. And I’m going to make a confession. That’s boring. I don’t want to do that. I want to travel, to go on adventures, to drive and not look back. I have so many things I want to do. The last thing I want to do is stay in one spot.

I’m sitting here staring at my floor in my room right now. It is full of boxes and items strewn everywhere. I move out in 3 days. Saturday. Am I scared? A little. Scared of how the process is going to work. Am I excited? Exceedingly. Am I worried? A little. Of being alone mostly and of having no one there. That is my only worry; that I will be completely abandoned. The funny thing is that when I was younger I always fantasized about leaving and dropping everything and starting fresh and honestly, last year I would have been able to do that. I was ready to do that. Then the spring semester hit and everything changed. I met so many new people and actually lived. Now the two people I still have from all of that, I am afraid to leave. I am afraid to lose. But I learned, this summer, how hard it is to just leave. I had the adventure I thought I would never have until I left this stupid state. . . and I had them right here in this stupid state and town. Quite ironic actually. But now I find I cling to those memories because I am afraid to create new ones. I need to remember that life isn't over. . . it has just begun. And I have many days until it's over. . . and in reality. Life will only last as long as I decide to pursue it. . . that is something I have come to realize. 

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts 

are conscious of our treasures.”

-Thornton Wilder