It was the morning that Thanksgiving break started and Steve and I were laying in bed watching the snow fall through his single tiny window. I asked him “please answer honestly, what makes you happy, what dream do you have that keeps you going when things are bad?” He answered me, he told me. He told me everything he had a huge plan, he had a great dream and that dream is what kept him going. Then he turned to me and asked me what I was so scared of, he asked me “what kept me going? What made me happy, what was my dream?” I turned away from him in the guise of thinking. I began to cry so softly that he couldn’t hear because in truth the answer was I had no idea. I made up something for him so that he wouldn’t know how empty I was I told him my only dream was to be loved and to love back. Truth is that I do want that, but I don’t think I am capable of that the truth is that I have no idea what it is that I want. I have nothing inside of me driving me to live.
In Elementary school I did what I felt would make my Dad proud. I was living for him. In High school I was doing what I could to make my oldest sister proud. I was living the life that she would have if she were me. I went to college because my mom wanted me to I wanted to do something for her because I had been such a hard teenager to live with. I got to college and I suddenly was left fulfilling any thing I could for my “friends and professors”. I wanted to help anyone I could in any way I could. I would put off everything in my life if only someone asked me and said it would help them.
Now I find myself weeks away from leaving the country and I don’t want to. Why am I leaving I am leaving because it was what my professors wanted. Not what I want. What I want is to figure out who I am and I don’t know that I will be able to do that while I am fulfilling someone else’s dream. I don’t think I will find myself while I am working as hard as I can to survive in a completely new situation. I have also found that the number of people standing by me while I go through this is small enough to count on one hand and have some fingers left over. How can I have devoted 22 years to helping everyone around me putting off figuring out who I am to help others find themselves and now when I finally need someone there are so few to stand beside me and hold me when I am too unsteady to stand by myself.
I know I make it hard for people to care about me because I am so worried about hurting me. But there are many who know the truth is that if you just push a little I cave in and open myself completely. I really do want to be loved but I don’t just give it out. If you just give your love you are hurt to a lesser extent but way more often. If I am going to allow myself to be hurt I deserve to be hurt and badly because it was stupid of me to let someone in who would later use it against me. All I know right now as at the time I need to be alone the least most everyone is content with me pulling away. Why is it when others tried to distance themselves I give it my all to not let them try to take it all on alone, yet when I do people can’t be bothered to make the effort? I always felt like it was alright that I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted because I had enough people in my life to make up for it. I could be the wandering idiot that only did what others needed done but now, now when they have all fled me because I finally need something in return I am not so sure about life anymore. Now all I know is that I set myself up for a huge fall and I don’t have enough people around to help soften the landing. I am scared of crushing those who have stood by me.
I know that this sounds truly bleak. The truth stands however, that in order to figure out what it is that I need to I must become comfortable with what I currently am. Having said it out loud I see how much I have wasted my life. I have in sorts freed myself to move on, to move past this person that I was and to morph into the person I can be. Yes it will take me time to find that person but now I have allowed myself to move past the past and I can truly live in the now and push forward looking for my individual future.
