taking it back

over the last 6 months since my previous entry, much has changed, much is the same, and yet from the outside looking in, all seems identical, plus some extra pounds, and minus some outward negativity.

It has been tumultuous to say the least, and in order to accurately log the wavering, multitudinous ebbs and flows, one must refer to a great general hindsight entry of longing, satisfaction, teetering regret mixed with a natural order of things, humility, indignation, and what can I say, a series of many more intense, contrived emotions.

From the equally emotionally tumultuous nature of my childhood, I had built myself up .. pulled myself up by my bootstraps, have you, over a period a decade.  A laborious, painful, sullied decade.  But a decade nonetheless that had resulted in an imminently increasing self awareness, insight not only to my flawed schemas, perceptions, reactions and behavior, but to that of others, a fascinating career which even at its fledgling state appears at least average with hope in sight, a lengthy support network of equally if not more so successful and insightful, well-adjusted peers, and healthily healing, but far from perfect family relationships.

That was the moment I apparently decided that I was grown up enough, mature enough, healed enough to embark on a supposedly eternal relationship.  I say supposed here because I am not sure how I feel about eternal.  Tangent:  Eternal to me, in the past has always had spiritual connotations, and increasingly I feel atheist.  Or maybe a severely pessimistic agnostic.  Something about this new phenomenon that has been coined the "quarter life crisis" has me in a place I'd tried at all costs to avoid.  Unnervingly skeptical, headed towards complacent, with only hopelessness to look forward to.  Am hoping to find my way out of this rabbit hole soon enough folks.

There are times when I feel that everything I've achieved and worked towards will soon be behind me and I will no longer be on this side of things.  Let me further explain.  Now I am jogging up a hill, (for lack of a better metaphor, here is a cliche for you).  I have slowed into this jog from a substantial sprint before which I had to teach myself to walk, and then to run.  This jog has left me with the top of the hill in sight.  But as I look around, I notice that this is not the hill I had intended to be on.  Unfortunately I can tell you exactly how I got here, and am satisfied with the reasons as to how I got here.  For example, I met with rain and avoided some puddles.  Ran into some seemingly impassable trees, went around them.  Helped another being find their own path, led them to their hill.  And here I stand, content with my decisions, however the little light inside of me is slowly betraying me, as I it.

In an effort to regain my footing on the path that is and was mine, I have rerouted myself, mid hill.  I can't see the top of the hill on my hill anymore, but I will get there.  The impassable trees will be conquered this time, and the puddles plundered.  In this effort, the top of the hill does not seem so foreboding, but a challenge beckoning and fanning that inner light inside of me, coaxing with breezes of comfort and encouragement.

The more I acknowledge myself, the more I think for myself, the more I am myself.  Cogito Ergo Sum.

I guess Descartes and I have more in common than I thought.
Long gone are the philosophical days of chain-smoking and arguing that a chair is a chair, and whether the sun will rise tomorrow based simply on the fact that it has always since we can remember.  Long gone are the days of sitting on the floor with cheap wine and debating the existence of an all-good god and ethical absolutes.  All of that has been resolved or agreed to be disagreed or debated beyond debate or simply is and no longer requires my reverie.

And long gone, or so I thought, were the days of doubting everything about myself and constantly questioning who I was and who I wanted to be.  They are here again, in a form quite different that when I had once encountered long ago.  This time I know exactly where to begin, and how to get where I'm going.

Existential Crisis number 4879q5079, let's see what you are packing.