Since graduating high school I've had to fight everyday for the desire to live. Now, this sounds extremely morbid, depressing, and some would probably even opt to stick me in an institution. But it is not as it sounds.
All that means, really, is that I keep coming up with this desire to live out each day and continue exploring my future. Why there was such a shift since high school, however, is simple. While in high school, and all the time before, my life was pretty much laid out for me, and any life beyond that was the future...the future that would seemingly never come, and therefore it did not even exist in my reality.
Many ask me why I took a gap year, that is partially why. Thinking about college was thinking about the part of my life that didn't even exist, therefore, it was impossible to do. That is also why most of my gap year was made up of "oh, I guess I ended up here" moments that taught me to trust in myself, and in "the fates" whatever they may be.
But even with that trust, I feel as though I am in a weird abyss. I do not know where I am or where I am going, all I know is that I am not "there" (high school and prior) anymore, and I will not go back "there" ever again. The few things I have to cling to for reassurance to a linear path is my family (though that's kind of exploded and shattered and changed in ways that I can barely comprehend), my friends (though I've learned that although friendships may last forever, they will not always be able to hold you up and keep you going as they used to), and college (which I struggle with far too often. I am content there, not happy. And that alone makes me sad). So, what I'm left with is myself. Oh goodie! Just me, myself, and I in this no-future abyss. It's terrifying. I guess I kind of understand more fully now why people desire to marry-then it's not just you, you've got a partner in crime, and if you've got a good one, that partner will help teach you how to love yoself!
But since I do not have such a partner, I must teach myself how to love myself and that process must start by getting to know me. It is now a necessity. A survival strategy, if you will.
That is why I am kept up at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering on all the possibilities that life has to offer, and once my thoughts breach the confines of American cultural concepts, I'm overwhelmed and eventually shut it all off. Sometimes it is easier to keep myself in the dark. Sometimes once I begin to wonder, I realize I will end up a lonely prostitute living on the streets... which is not an altogether bad scenario, as it would certainly be interesting, but as you can imagine, is not quite where I would like my life to go. So with that one, I often lay awake in fear until my eyes relent, and I sleep.
But that is also why I wake up every day and [usually] am overjoyed to see that my life is continuing. I get to explore my undiscovered day like it is unchartered territory. And everyday I get to turn the unknown future into a conquered memory of the past.
It is always scary. It is always rewarding.
This view of time makes heaps of sense to me:
"You are in the middle of a river (Time) and facing downstream. The future approaches you from behind . . . only to recede into the past, which actually lies in front of you, moving ever farther away. If you could look far enough downstream you would see the beginning of the stream and, in essence, everything."
