October 9, 2008

• unresolved

  
  ©zzzed

  i'm not so sure what i think about 29.  i wrote my french pen pal a happy birthday note the other day, and she wrote back, "29ans...Plus qu'un an avant de passer définitivement à l'âge adulte..."  i didn't think much of it at the time, but several days later, it's hitting me.  i'm an adult.  well, i have been an adult, but i think i was in denial.  when i turned 29, it was strange to think that i'd reach the age my mom was when she had me.  having children seems like such a distant reality for me.

  before diving into the pathos of aging or growing older, let me state this up front.  this is not a post about aging or growing older.  it's more about feeling unresolved...and i don't think that has anything to do with age.

  i love/hate the internet.  i love all the beautiful things i find to look at and to read, but i hate all the dreams it puts into my head because sometimes i get so caught up in the dream that i forget to live reality.  or even worse, i get frustrated with my present reality.  i've been doing a lot of kicking against the goads these days, and i'm not sure what good it's doing.  there's a lot of woulda, shoulda, couldas i see whirring about me, especially from the accomplished elite who are also my peers.  it's enough to make me look at my life and ask myself, "what am i doing?"

  it's not so much that i am doubting everything that i am living, but i'm wondering how the decisions i've made and are making are affecting the rest of my life.  i know that life continues in this haphazard way of jolts and stops and surges, but maybe living in the West gives me a sense that i command my own destiny.  uh oh.  the ugly "i" rears its head.  in my mind, i can sing, "jesus commands my destiny," but in a world of 401Ks, housing markets and insurance, i don't know how that translates.  trust God.  yes.  but the active trusting is the difficult part - what am i supposed to be doing?

  it's gotten to this point now where i look at kids and feel this bittersweet joy.  "enjoy it while you can, kid, because life is one bumpy ride."  sometimes, i wish that adults had been much more up front with me when i was younger, just so that this whole adulthood thing wouldn't have been so much of a shock.  ha.  thankfully, i'm not bitter.  but i do sigh.  i see some people getting what they want, and then some people toiling and toiling, and never quite getting there.  and for both situations, this is life.

  i try to remind myself that earthly realities are temporary, but sometimes i feel like i'm failing this big audition.  a one shot deal to get it right, and someone forgot to give me the script.  i think what i am experiencing is momentary joy interspersed in a reality of sadness, when i'd opt for the reverse situation.  but people keep reminding me to stop carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.  it is our choice to be happy.  choose happiness.

  so i wonder if i'm choosing sadness thereby making my reality inherently tainted.  this is the point at which my beloved family would tell me not to think so much.  i'm trying not to, but sometimes i can't turn it off.  some people are like that.

  unfortunately, this post is going to be as unresolved as my thoughts are...a jumbled mess which i'm trying to tease out bit by bit by bit.  thank you, though, for the bits of happiness, though.  i don't know how i'd possibly survive without those.  and help me to see as i ought to be seeing.  and help me to keep feeling without feeling too deeply.  it's in those moments that i feel the collective sigh of unresolved souls, and i unwillingly join the giant exhalation.

  • 3:44 pm
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