Last of the holiday parties today, which went off pretty well. Always nice to see those folks, though lately I feel like I’ve been failing at hanging out properly. I don’t know quite what it is, but I feel like I’m having a really hard time opening up to or feeling close to anyone but Lewis and my sister. I’m not sure if it’s expecting too much of people, but there’s a familiar place in my mind that I feel like I spent much of high school and such in – the place where I know that no one cares what I do, say, or think, so I’m really better off not doing or saying anything. I’ve grown to realize that this actually makes me a very difficult conversationalist and only serves to make people actually not enjoy talking to me or being around me, and that all just makes it feed on itself. And somewhere deep down I don’t think it’s as serious as all that, nor should it be terribly important whether my acquaintances have some sort of personal investment in my life. They shouldn’t, and I should be more okay with talking about myself and about the world with people who are only temporary figures in my life. I’m not sure what drives me to be taciturn at times and not at others, but I guess I’m in one of those slumps, and I’ll surely have to get over it.
Right now, my heart just feels a little cold and inaccessible. I’m in need of joy, and release. Relaxation. Something of this order which gets me either out of my own murky head. Though school will thrust me back into the all-too-clear present, which is another good place to be. It’s as though I either need to be thinking far more deeply about something, or far less. I wish it were easier to pinpoint what it is that’s on my mind, that makes me feel so isolated and preoccupied. Going through life feeling like there’s something wrong about my life that I just can’t quite put my finger on is a little maddening, and a little depressing, and all this failed introspection doesn’t help the situation whatsoever. Maybe all I want is to know where I’m going in life, and that I’m not making huge mistakes with my education and career and life plan. I can’t count the number of times my idling brain has pulled me out of school so that I can work a steady 9-to-5 while Lewis gets his PhD and I recede into the tried-and-true working woman and mom combo. And then the though of myself as a mom makes me temporarily sick and a little angry that the next stage in my life might be something that seems so unfulfilling and that I haven’t figured out yet how to raise children to feel loved and cared for and stable. Everything about the future is simultaneously promising and frustrating. I know I’m only 25 and I’m not supposed to have the answers, but it feels like until now that I’ve had a plan, and now my plan is so nebulous and quixotic.
Sigh. I have another one of these dually unachievable plans in place for tomorrow. I both want to get a bunch of tidy chores done – taking down the Christmas tree and getting some errands run – and to throw myself to the winds and somehow have an life affirming adventure that unwinds me. Every day feels like this. With any luck, I’ll at least sleep well.