I’m blaming Freud for all my ill will right now, even though he is indirectly related. If he hadn’t come up with the cockamamie scheme of psychoanalysis, and if his children hadn’t spawned it, it would not have been part of my Intro To Lit Theory class that I had to take this past semester.
I can still see the textbook, flipped open to that page, discussing how individuals who tend to change things about themselves rather frequently have this: unstable sense of self.
In short, they have no idea who the hell they are!
Sound familiar?
It’s been the anathema of my life, really. (Would have you know that it pays to look up words that you are not sure the spelling of. I almost had “anthema” — which means to blossom. Amazing what one little letter does.)
It’s days like this that I need to take stock on what and who I am. So
let’s begin:
- I’m 31.
- I have my own apartment, stocked full of materialistic goodies.
- Brand new 04 car.
- Two pugs.
- Family that loves me (even when they get on my nerves).
- Exes who come and go out of my life, but overall general good relations.
- I have 90/60 blood pressure, all my own teeth, hair is not greying and I’ve lost 30lbs this year.
- Never been to prison, have my GED, going to colleg,e and tend to keep myself out of trouble.
- Friends, far and wide, who love me.
So why, then, am I not happy?
I’m on this middle ground and it’s driving me crazy! Of course. On one hand, all of my friends (real and virtual) are shacking up and getting married, having babies and of COURSE I am happy for them. But. I’ve been down that road before and it’s not really something I care to get into again. I’ve lived with enough men, had enough proposals and what not for any woman in her own lifetime.
Yet there is this underlying and unquenchable thirst to NEED. But what is it that I need?
What. Is. It. That. I. Need. To. Make. Me. Happy.
I found that my own paradigm of thought was more different than others this year during classes. I did just as well as some of the best students but the train of thought that I would follow was never the same as the others. At first this disturbed me, because I thought I was wrong (if you are not following the herd, then you must be — right?) Later, as the grades start pouring in and I was doing just as well as they were, I realised I was right to continue on this path. But my path was different and while I embraced the difference, it felt like it was reflecting really my life as a whole.
Because I’ve never, ever, done anything by the book.
As you already may know.
2003 was about looking for who I was, to dismiss everything that made me feel icky and take me by the horns. I needed to heal and I needed to get my shit together, and consciously I did that. I made concrete decisions and found out WHO I was, after all this time. I took chances that I would have never taken before and I resisted things that I knew would end up
hurting me. Most of this, of course, resulted in my choices of men. I was no longer going to date someone simply because they were interested in me, rather, I was going to make sure that I was interested in them. Also, I was not going to allow myself to make decisions based on my loins either. Which was difficult to do.
So who is Lisa?
This is ironic, but, I was watching Charmed a few weeks back (via Tivo, of course) and one of the minor characters said to Phoebe (one of the major ones, if you don’t watch it) that so many women of her generation wanted to be independent and have careers, and when it came down to it, they were finding themselves in their 40s and 50s, alone. Not sharing their success with anyone because no one was around. That saddened me, because that was the life (or one of the lives) I had predicted for myself. I was (and to an extent) so thoroughly tired of relationships, I wanted nothing more than to be alone. But that is not working out EITHER, as I have discovered.
Another really cheesy thing I had read somewhere, was how if you spend so much time looking for yourself, you end up losing yourself. Life is in the here and now, and with that I do agree. This is why I dismiss most of the crackpot shrinks, drugs and what not, because I’ve been following their plan for the last 20 years and where did it get me? Bwahahah! More confused than ever!
But what it is about ‘me’ that is so uniquely different than everyone else? Oh, I know the old saying “You’re different than everyone else” but, I can’t keep feeling that somehow I’m ‘more different’ than those other unique people. I’m not sure if it is because they found someone to be happy with, or what the case is, but you know, this shit is for the birds!
I’m a lot stronger than I was a year ago. I’m a lot more positive and yes, in many aspects I’m happier, a lot happier. But the bottom line is, there is still something missing that needs to make me fulfilled and I really, REALLY wish I knew what that was.
x0x0x
Lisa
ps: I dismiss the crackpot theory about the unstable sense of self, because like most theories, it tends to generalize and not be concrete.