The line that most connected with me was this concept of "living the life you didn't plan on." Whether that relates to your career, your love life, your friends, your personality, or your deeds, it's a powerful thought.
This contemplation of one's life seems to happen to most people somewhere in their mid-twenties to early thirties. In college, you had dreams and plans and then after school, they failed to deliver. Or you had an amazing girlfriend/boyfriend, and you broke up, and now you feel like you're right back where you started, and that you're never going to find someone that cares about you. Or you start to think that you will always be alone in this world, and that the people you care about and the friendships you build will always dissolve in time and distance just by the nature of constant relocation. Or you start questioning your family's views, your spiritual background, your sexuality, and anything else you've depended on for most of your life. The bottom line is that most people's lives are entirely in flux throughout their twenties and some of their thirties.
Some people get married early and get a job that they end up loving for 40 years, but for most people, have no idea what to expect year to year. It's this ambiguity, this limbo that causes people to feel like their lost in the world, when in fact, they are just as lost as everyone else. The catch is that we ARE alone-no one will ever know us like we know ourselves. Yet, we are not alone- everyone and everything is connected. It's this strange balance, a koan of alone/not alone that we address everyday. By relinquishing our youth in our twenties, we end up having to deal with issues that we've been hiding from for decades: our beliefs that we may be unlovable or that we will never be "good enough." (Sometimes people just never grow up, and like to avoid these internal conflicts. Lucky them.) The weird thing is that chain of fear, doubt, and insecurity is circuitous- you feel bad about yourself and avoid seeing people, even though the one thing that would cheer you up would be to see people. Or you stop playing your instrument because you feel you are inadequate, when in fact, playing would nurture your soul, even if it doesn't match up to an external gauge of success.
Everyday, we tell ourselves things. Culturally, we look down upon schizophrenics, claiming that only a select few people have voices in their heads. We all have voices- voices that support us, that knock us down, tell us we sound bad, compare us to other people, etc. The real test is how we react to those voices, whether we listen to them and let them shape our lives, or whether we punch them in the face. For me, it depends on the day. But these voices are relying on a preconceived outcome of every given situation, to tell you how things are going to go. "You won't perform well on Wednesday because you always have problems with memory/sound/etc." or "You have been single for most of your life. What would change now?" However, the voices don't know anything more than the universe itself. Your future, your life, is not written down. You are in control of most of your life, and the way you choose to react to the events in your life.
When I was a kid, I used to imagine that my life was a chapter in a very large book, and that some unknown intangible being knew how my life was going to unfold, and that I just had to wait for the pages to turn. I imagined a sort of impish creature readying my life as a very riveting piece of biographical material, perhaps a sort of Dobby (hp) creature. While I still hold onto the vestiges of that, I have more of a fantastical approach in my mind, in that I possess a mythical pen (preferably a quill and some glittery magic ink) and that the words fall onto the pages of my life with my own decisions. In my sleep, I bleed the actions of the day onto this invisible book, and I begin the day with no recollection of this transference.
(I've been thinking about this sort of thing a lot lately, as it has been exactly a year since my
tendonitis debacle which ultimately ruined my second semester. So much of what I suffered through
was self-created. While the pain and injury was not, I knew that my perspective was not helping, and
in retrospect, it was a very valuable thing to have happen. Lately, I've been trying to remember how
awful it felt to not play, and how miserable I was without my expression and my viola. That was
certainly one of most unpleasant periods of my life, at least since middle and high school, and I'm
really glad I survived mostly unscathed. It is the apotheosis of this solitude that I am thinking of.
I felt so alone- as though no one could understand how I felt, and as though all of my work and studies
amounted to nothing. That kind of blackness began to permeate all of my life- everything just became
gray and hopeless; my classes sucked, my job was rough, the weather was depressing, and I didn't
have anything to do. I only wish I had so much time to think about things today! This year has been
the complete opposite, and while I still have issues, my overall state of being is much more stable,
and I feel less like a buoy floating untethered in the ocean. Yes, some of those issues still apply:
I don't have an absolute plan for my life, nor do I have a significant other, nor do I have unanimous
approval from summer festivals and teachers. Yet, I have small things- small glimpses of support,
love, and success and that's all I can cling to. I am a planner- I like to be organized. And nothing
that has happened in the last two years has been planned. I am only starting to look forward to
it.)
While this still doesn't ameliorate this quarter-life crisis, a few main points come to mind:
-That we can embrace each moment of life, in all of its glory, pain, and neutrality, and look forward to each moment.
-That none of us is ever as alone as our minds let us believe.
-That every person, no matter how great their flaws, is loveable. (There was a really funny preview for a movie in which the male character meets the woman of his dreams, and he says something along the lines of "Why would you want me? I'm like shrek of the forest. Why is there a beautiful maiden in the swamp?" That made me chuckle.)
-That nothing is ever certain, and we have to be comfortable with that level of ambiguity, doubt, and possibility. With uncertainty comes the possibility for random occurrences- certainty is predictable and entirely dry.
While I wish I could know how my life would unfold- whether I'll find the man, job, or viola of my dreams, I'll embrace the live I never planned on. It's all I've got.
