i have been thinking a bunch this week about happiness. it's a topic that i think about all the time, but most of the time i personally feel very unhappy and discontent. my friend sandy lent me her copy of The Art of Happiness, and that gave me perspective for a little while, but then i sort of forget everything that made a light bulb go off in my head, and i fall into the same old routines.
it's strange because i always feel like i'm at an "inbetween point" in my life. like im never moving forward. i like being in school this semester, but i hope i don't get burnt out. i do finally feel like once i finish this program, i will at least have something concrete. with this teaching license, i can pretty much teach anywhere i want from Birth-3rd grade, even though it's a birth-kindergarten license. that is much more gratifying than my dumb biology major. even my exss minor has gotten me further than all my bio work!
i have been thinking more strongly about moving abroad after i get my teaching license. if i move to italy, i would be set since that is where most of the great educators formed their philosophies. and plus, italians love children, and they value them and believe them to be important. i still haven't been to israel, egypt and greece. those are three countries on my list that have not yet been visited. though my parents would never let me to go israel or egypt even though i'm dyiiiiing to see both. sometimes i think i should just be an archeologist, since i find ancient egypt so interesting. then i'm like forget this - i should just move to japan and live in a house with a sensai on a mountain and study ninjutsu for the rest of my life and completely take on that lifestyle, not having to worry about anything else. but then i remember that i really want a healthy family, with a full life of friendships and a career that i love. damn me.
i'm clearly also at an inbetween point with relationships, both friendships and romantically. i feel like having made ALL brand new friends this year has been extremely difficult. most people i know now, don't even know the old katie. who the hell was i before? the only people who really, truly know me and love me are my friends from rvc, plus lauren. it's funny because i really like all the new friends i've made, it's just that they haven't known me that long. it's weird that they just don't know what my life was like before, since i am compllllllllllletely different. i know people change, of course, during the span of their lives, but i have been forced to change in this one year so substantially. this is cliche, but it's almost like i am getting to know a new me. haha. that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. and as for relationships, well, im not really out there to date so much. if i met a guy randomly that i really liked, id prolly date him, but chances are slim, i'm pretty picky. i do really like cory, but that is a whole separate situation that is not moving forward anytime in the near future. which is a good thing...i just feel so unhappy about it all.
when i think about how i have made all new friends, instead of seeing the joys of these newly found friendships, all i can think about are the circumstances behind these friendships that forced me to seek them out! which, by the way, really sucks. plus, i'm scared. all the time. there is no way that anything like what happened last year can ever happen to me again, because i just can't handle it. i mean, nobody could. seriously. when i hang out with wesley and lyndsi, it is so crystal clear that they love each other, truly. i know only a few other young couples like that, that actually commit to each other like that. that's what i want. i mean, it is kind of a tall order because that takes so long to cultivate and work on, that my impatience prolly won't allow me to accept that i need to wait for someone who is actually worth it. that's the thing - what the hell does that even mean anymore?! i guess i'm ranting based on my own personal experience, which is nowhere remotely close to the normal 23-year-olds....but still.
i also realize that i am an extremely intense person. but it is who i am, i can't help it so much. sometimes i try to hold back, but eventually the truth leaks out. it's true...i freak people out. this has been making me a little upset. it is so difficult to find people who can keep up with me. i can run on E for longer than most people. i feel like i constantly push myself to the limit because i get so bored when i'm not doing anything. i know that i am passionate and driven and this year has not been the most shining example of that, but it's still underneath. i don't know how to make it so that people are not scared and intimidated by me. i have been struggling with this since the 6th grade. other friends parents would even tell me later in high school that when their kid became friends with me, they were scared themselves because i seemed so intimidating! wtf...i was in the 6th grade.
part of it is that NY is an intense place, and you have keep up your shell because that's the nature of the beast in that environment. i think maybe i have been more sensitive lately because i know 9/11 is fast approaching. ugh. i hate it. i hate that every year i am in a trance all during the day. i have the same pictures and sequence of events running through my head over and over. i try to talk or text all of my friends from NY, if i don't receive a message from them first...though we're pretty good about it. but i think that it's just making me sad, adding to the unhappiness. i hate thinking about all 40 funerals at St. Agnes and i hate remembering what it was like to have running lists of missing people in our heads for weeks. i hate thinking about how much my dad cried during the following weeks. and worst of all, i hate thinking that some terrorist is going to nuke the shit out of NY and i will lose my whole family and my whole life. the whole thing is always in the back of my mind reminding me about the value of life, of living life.
so i guess my point is that maybe i need to have more faith in people. maybe i need to believe people when they say they like me, they want to be my friend and they say i'm an interesting person. maybe i need to NOT believe some people when they devalue me because it makes them feel more powerful. maybe i need to go with the flow a little bit more. maybe i need to not worry so much about what's going to happen with my life. maybe i need to think like a guy for a little bit and just chill out in the moment.
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