wanderings

Mar 04, 2008 - 23:09 PM PST

sometimes I think that I was most myself when I was a small child...uninhibited, mesmerized by the simple beauty of loving a rock or a daisy chain, feeling like a hero because of the insects I saved from shoes and magnifying glasses during recess...back then, I never thought it would be possible to feel lost or unsure as an adult. the future seemed sure and easy, as if all things would happen in time and when they were meant to. I never thought that I would be two years out of college with more insecurities in myself and the world I am supposed to be entering than ever. As a child, all you want to be is a "grown-up," it symbolizes the opportunity to make your own choices, fulfill your own dreams. But what they don't tell you is that when you get there, your dreams are no longer clear and your choices aren't either. Sometimes, I feel so overwhelmed by what I think that I am supposed to be doing now that I forget to look out my window or go hug a majestic tree. I forget that I actually love what I do...I know that it is for now and not forever, but that should be enough for me. I am young, still, but somewhere between being that moth-saving playground superhero and now, I feel that I have lost part of myself. It happened slowly, so slow I barely saw the pieces of myself falling away, but its as if I woke up recently and didn't recognize myself. I saw cynicism and doubt and calculation where the mystical wonder once was. Sometimes I just feel so numbed by my own seriousness...like I feared being too young to a point where I trained myself to detest the most youthful aspects of my personality and now I am unable to just be. Those who know me would never believe this to be true. Outwardly, I know that I seem young and exuberant and full of optimism, but I hold myself to a different standard than others might...not a higher standard, its just that I yearn for the atypical. In high school, one of the things I loved most about myself was that I didn't care what others though of me. I didn't just say it, like some do...for me, it was true. In that freedom, I found myself again, gained a real vision of who I was and what I wanted out of each day. I seem to have lost that somewhere...I search for it every day.