I've felt this way for as long as I can remember - this desire to remain forever young. And because of it, I kept journals for a large portion of my life. Now, every time I reread them, it's like I am reopening a gift that I gave to myself years ago. Some of the things written in there were surprisingly mature and honest. It's a strange sensation to learn from a younger version of yourself a lesson you thought you already knew the answer to. To go on a familiar journey, sometimes with a new perspective. It's inspiring, embarrassing, comforting, and unsettling. Sometimes I am reminded of an emotion or memory I used to cherish, that I have somehow forgotten to feel. In addition to journals, I have a few very special places that I have felt some of my strongest emotions. And while I believe it is truly the people that these memories contain that make them special, these places do still maintain a sense of happiness for me. I grew up in the same town my entire life. In the summers, I went to camp. The same camp. With the same people. Every summer. And then, when I was old enough, I would soon work at this camp. There, I would begin to discover who I was then, and who I wanted to become in the future. While I have long since moved on to other things in life, I can still profoundly feel the way I felt there. I remember being thirteen and in complete agony with the inability to sleep because the boy I had what is probably the biggest crush I've ever had in my life on was sleeping in just the next cabin over. Oh to be so close to him! All I wanted was to hold his hand and smile like an idiot at him all day. (And maybe share a pillow during a rainy day movie in the chapel). And then I remember being seventeen and totally in love with a boy who wasn't there with me, and thinking about the way it would feel to see him again at the end of the summer, but still not wanting it to go by a second faster - because I was with my family, and he could wait. I remember getting trapped outside during spontaneous thunder storms, skinny dipping when we thought no one was watching, singing at the top of our lungs, waking up to watch sunrises, staying up much too late to talk and not worrying so much about the future, and most of all, I remember crying together with such an intense passion when we were forced to leave one another and return to the real world. Who really feels such strong emotions like these now? And then there was Disney World, my other home - which didn't truly gain its full meaning until it became my literal home. The memories I have made and shared at that place will break my fall forever. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a child when they see the castle for the first time? What about when they see Mickey? Or Fireworks? This is the stuff of magic, people. And I will always cherish it.
I am an emotional person. But, before you make assumptions based on the connotation of this word - I am not emotional in this sense. Quite the contrary, in fact. I admit that I have received more than a couple concerns from relationships I have been in about my apparent lack of emotional distress, especially during moments in which it may be expected. It's not that I don't have emotions, it's just that I seem to possess a skill that allows me to remain calm and grounded, even during stress. In these moments, I can always clearly and openly discuss my opinions and feelings with the other person. However, because I am not appearing openly 'emotional,' this seems to have a debilitating effect on the person I am speaking with. Basically, I've been told that I am terrifying to speak to when I am upset - because I am very calm, open, and rational. (This is probably because from my perspective, when I see someone lose their temper, or focus on any form of emotional defense, I perceive them as having lost control. They are not thinking clearly and thus become unpredictable, unsafe, and usually unnecessarily unkind. Translation - people can be very emotionally immature). The truth is though, I am actually feeling quite a lot. I am cursed with a profound love for the people I surround myself with that I seem to never be able to forget - even when a person lets me down over and over. This is not to say that I am unable to recognize when enough is enough. I am not a martyr. I only mean that I have made a conscious choice in my life to love the people I love, despite the problems I may feel they suffer from. I find it is much healthier and much more positive to live a life where I take away the expectations I place on others and give them to myself instead. This way, I can never really be too disappointed, but I can always be surprised. And though this can be quite sad at times, truthfully, it's not really that unrealistic. We all do this in one way or another. Luckily, I have a few good people I can lean on, so I have the fortune of being able to live without constantly burdening every relationship I have with the all expectations of life. And trust me, I have a lot.
Despite this, I sometimes find myself feeling completely disconnected from myself and my emotions. The older I get, the more the things I used to consider really special become...shockingly unemotional to me. Christmas, birthdays, other holidays, vacations, all things that I used to excitedly look forward to as a child now have changed. Instead of the expected emotions that I see most other people experiencing during these exciting times - I actually tend to feel a bit of sadness, or rather just a lack of emotion. I know that this is not completely unheard of, after all, I've always read that more people commit suicide during the holidays than any other time of the year. But for me, it's not that kind of sadness. For me, it's a different emotion. I recognize that the older I get, the more I lose touch with the magic and wonder I felt for things as a child. Life was once so simple and exciting, every day. Such mystery and desire that drives the mind of a child. The sadness is more because I wish I still felt the way I used to feel about everything. But, such is the way of life. As we grow and evolve, our energies focus on different outlets. However, it is all too easy to forget how special things really are, still. So, what is it that is causing this sensation that we suffer from? Why can't our childlike excitement continue throughout our lives?
To combat these feelings, I do my best to surround myself with things that feed my soul. (I just realized that I think this is what separates children from adults. Everything is emotional to children. And while of course it is important to grow more mature in the way we interact with the world, this does not mean that we have to 'grow up' and lose all of our connection to the things that really make us feel). Art, music, film, aesthetics, conversation, these are things I consider essential pieces of every day. Otherwise, we are just existing, but not truly living. Our passions are what drive us. They're who we are; our connection that reminds us every day who we want to be and what we want to accomplish. Because of this, my Peter Pan Complex is a part of myself that I am quite happy with. I believe strongly that I never want to grow up (*"Because growing up means saying goodbye, and goodbye means forgetting," says Peter). So, I make a conscious effort every day to do whatever it takes to remember what it feels like right now, at this exact moment, to feel the way I feel. Because I know all too well that one day soon, I won't be able to remember. And by remember I don't mean just a thought, but I mean I won't be able to physically remember, in my soul. This is not something I am willing to give up. So, I spend my life open to the things that touched me as a child - because I want to hold on to that wonder and excitement that I know still exists in the world, somewhere. I will not pretend that this is an easy task - the temptation to become a cynic grows stronger every day, especially for anyone who is intelligent. It's just that I know where that road leads.
What I've Learned -
The only thing we have to fear is losing our passion. People will hurt us, our hearts will break, we will lose jobs, and opportunities, and friends, and pets, and some days it will rain, and some days we will feel so alive that we will make questionable decisions and gamble away our futures. But none of this matters at all as long as we don't lose our passionate love for life. Because as soon as we decide not to feel, not to love, no matter what it is we love, we lose what it means to be human. It's easy to go through life being a cynic. It's easy to be negative and closed off and emotionally unavailable. What is not easy is to feel. To truly feel. This requires something of yourself that many are unable to give. Feeling leads to fear, and fear leads to questions and anger and dissatisfaction. But it also leads to happiness once we decide what be believe to be the answers to all of life's most profound questions. Life is all about making a memory. It's about connecting to another special person out there somewhere. Do it. And don't be afraid. Because what's the point?
I recently had the opportunity to travel, for quite an extended period of time. I got to see the world. Some places I've met before, and some that I hadn't. The perspective something like this provides the willing recipient is unmatched by many things. But more than just the travel, I now currently find myself sitting in my childhood bedroom as I await the beginning of the next chapter of my life that is always, for me, on the horizon, ready to consume me. In the best possible way. I love the adventure and the uncertainty of what's to come. But as I sit in this room, I find myself exploring again emotions that I had forgotten I once had. Things I didn't know I could still feel.
Who knew that going off to a university for four years, 'growing up,' forming new relationships, and rarely visiting home during this time was not enough to make me forget who I was back then? This is not to say that I have regressed to being eighteen again, but just that I find it very emotional to find that part of myself so close, as if she has just been sleeping in the same bed all along. I can see her, talk to her, and again - learn from her, and how she used to feel about the world. Again, there are things that are certainly embarrassing, just as teenage memories are for the best of us, but mostly I am just happy to meet a younger me, look her in the eyes, extract all of that inspiring emotion and passion, and then move on to bigger and better things.
Sleeping in the same bed I grew up in - all of the bad dreams....and the good ones. The tears and heartbreak, the love and adventure, the nights when that boy would wake me up by climbing in with me while I was sleeping on a school night because he was over at my house with all the others. AIM, Facebook Chat, phone calls, text messages, sneaking out, and then back in; and the constant feeling of longing to grow up and move away, not knowing what that really even meant. I can feel it all. And it's nice, because life is not simple like this anymore. And I don't want it to be. But I do appreciate that it once was.
Being home this week has reminded me more than ever that it's the best feeling in the world to feel, no matter what that feeling may be. I've had the time, for the first time in years, to slow down and interact with some of my old friends. While it's mainly been amusing, it's also been eye opening. It seems to me like many of them are almost exactly the same (not all, but most). The same dynamics, the same opinions, the same communication skills, the same pretty eyes, and adorable smile, and intoxicating smell, and short dresses, and recreational activities, and judgements, and goals. It's almost like time has stopped somehow. This is not to say that everything is exactly the same, just that to me it's eerily similar in a way I did not expect it to be. I guess I thought that because I made a decision in myself to change and grow, that everyone else would do so at the same rate as me. I realize now that this is not an expectation that I should have on others. In fact, I've learned that most people never actively decide to grow, they just luck in to it from time to time if they happen to overcome the right problem. I've always gone through my life thinking that I was being perceived a certain way, that I was special, in regards to this topic. And while I still believe that people recognize that I am different than them in a lot of ways, I don't think this is reason enough for them to be compelled to ask why. Not unless they too wish to be this way. Maybe, in some ways, this makes them more passionate than me. Maybe these people I once felt so close to have merely just retained their ability to make decisions more based on feeling than I am now capable of. In this sense, I am envious.
This week, and its experiences were exciting, entertaining, perhaps a bit dangerous, eye opening and served to remind me all over again parts of me that I am proud of. To be a bit reckless is a part of the beauty of youth and quite possibly the thing that will always remain to link us to the past, should we ever wish to revisit it. What we do with that knowledge and perspective, however, remains to be seen. And this is the most exciting part about it all - growing, but not growing up...not unless we want to.
If I had to sum up what I've learned about the constant quest for happiness in to one sentence, it would be this:
Figure out what you love, and let it kill you.
0 Comments
|
CategoriesArchives
September 2014
|