I think this is why I worked so hard in
college to not think as much as possible. I knew even back then how destructive my own thoughts can be.
In fact, I'd say I always knew, but wasn't able to get my hands on the things that would keep them at bay until I was out from under my parents' roof. Looking back, it seems that
everyone in college was at the age where not thinking was pretty much a coping mechanism for even the slightest hint of reality. Escapism allowed us to reflect on the past, even the worst of which was easier to contend with than the present or, God forbid, the unforeseen future. Shit, some of us avoided thinking just so we wouldn't have to deal with the
baggage our SO's brought into our dorms every night, or on the steps outside our classes, waiting for us like
birds of prey.
I am the queen of thinking too much and more so the queen of focusing on the worst kinds of thoughts. Regret, loss, guilt, irreconcilable differences, memories that have not yet been dealt with, and the realization that you can't find closure with everything, that you are cursed with loose ends floating around inside you until the day you die. For me, it is not the struggle to accept there is no meaning to life and that it is only a cycle of random occurrences. I believe that there is meaning, and quite a lot of it, to be sure. It is the struggle to believe that I make any sense by myself, that I have meaning, that has me up pacing the floor at 3am, sucking down flat ginger ale and wanting nothing more than for someone to convince me that it will all be ok.
Oh, I have moments of joy, of happiness, where everything is falling into place and there seems to be even a structure to my own life, that I am going somewhere with this. All I've thought about is leaving New Orleans, not because I feel the need to run away but because I am actually looking forward to not being preoccupied with people, as I have been here. I want to search for that fulfilling career, or to think toward something else besides people for a change.
One of the hardest things for me to accept is that no one has even a fraction of the answers that I long for, and that it is even wrong for me to want that in the first place. There are no quick fixes that fix even one thing for good, so that you don't have to back to it 5 years later and fix it again. Once you find your center of the universe and meaning, there is so much untended to that you must tend to, that it is all pretty much your mess. And of course, that if I don't give up, tomorrow will be here soon enough and it will all start over again. That's supposed to be uplifting, and perhaps tomorrow it will be, but tonight, it's just another day I haven't made sense of.