If you can love someone with your whole heart, even just one person, then there's salvation in life. Even if you can't get together with that person.

1Q84

"Falling in love, we said; I fell for him. We were falling women. We believed in it, this downward motion: so lovely, like flying, and yet at the same time so dire, so extreme, so unlikely. God is love, they once said, but we reversed that, and love, like heaven, was always just around the corner. The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always, for the incarnation. That word, made flesh. And sometimes it happened, for a time. That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You would look at the man one day and you would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done... There is a good deal of comfort, now, in remembering this."

- The Handmaid's Tale

It’s been over a year. I miss you more than you know. I’ve become stagnant. I fear that different won’t necessarily mean better.

How many signs do I need? The time has come to seek change.

Silence. This vacuum I am growing familiar with. We may as well be friends.

July is nearly here, but I have made little to no discernible progress. I still miss him. I'm still here. I'm yearning for something different, but I don't know what exactly that may look like. And I'm fearful that change will be less pleasant than the present.

It’s silly. I dig until I find the things that make my throat feel tight and my stomach drop. Only this time, it’s only a shadow of what I’ve experienced before. I recognize that I have no right to feel this way. Bigger picture, I’ve brought this upon myself.

I am still lost. Perhaps even more adrift that I was before.

I am exhausted by the days and yet I also while away the hours doing mindless things. I avoid the mundane responsibilities for so long that their shadow becomes a form with weight and mass that I find myself saddled with. 

Where am I going? What do I strive for? And what can I look forward to? 

I don’t recall what it felt like before, but why is it so hard to let go and forget? 

Lacking motivation, direction, and drive

1. I am very fortunate to have a loving family and amazing friends 2. It is really time to move the f on. Hamilton mixtape got me pumped up and ready to hustle when it comes to work and life!!

What is my goal? Why must we move ever faster and strive ever higher? What if I am ok right here for now? What is the balance between present and future?

The exhaustion of running (however slow I may be) is somehow comforting and all enveloping. No other excuse is needed to hide away and keep silent. Sometimes I crave connection, but more often than not, I am looking to hide away and give in to the quiet exhaustion I feel.

The magic of the first meeting. I miss it. Is saying no also a form of courage?

Some things are not worth pursuing

Say yes to the things that are important. This also means saying no to that which does not serve you. I sometimes find it challenging to distinguish between pushing beyond ones comfort zone and doing novel or commonly valued things/experiences. I suppose what lies on the other side is a key factor to consider. But what if the process is highly unpleasant? I feel like I can't trust my own mind to tell me whether something is right when I fear change and aspire to achieve some modicum of socially accepted form of achievement.

How did it become March? I'm scared of the future.

I have a lot of anxiety over doing the wrong thing and being on the receiving end of disapproval. The right thing, as determined by exogenous factors, is tied with approval and acceptance. The inverse is also true. 

In addition, I have attributed work and effort with achievement, acceptance, and love. As a result, I often strive to reach goalposts determined by someone else (often with different values and aims.) In the process, I have been so distracted as to neglect fully developing a sense of internally determined goals. How can one feel fulfilled if one is unaware of what it is that s/he is seeking? When I attain the goals of public, parental, or a partner’s expectations, I am seeking acceptance and the hopes of fulfilling someone else’s image of me. 

Am I different that who others imagine me to be or become? Where does that person begin and end, if 1. we showcase different selves to different individuals, in no small part because individual relationships have distinct dynamics, and 2. one has not been able to develop truly independent thought.

What is independent, free, original thought anyway? Does it even exist? Is it important or beneficial? 

It is late, and yet again I am sleep deprived. I do not look forward to meetings, trying to respond to inquiries that I do not know how to approach, and facing a friend whose cousin pointed out some ways in which my decisions and behavior were unwise and raised concerns in others (reference to roommate search inquiries.) I feel unprepared for interviews and the like.

Do I want to leave because I want to? Or does it simply seem like the thing that smart, independent, liberal women do? Is it my/my generations’ aversion to committing to one job or organization or location?

These days, wanderlust, not steadfastness, is a popular virtue. 

Upon a friend’s recommendation, I am making a renewed attempt at recording my thoughts and journaling. (I have to admit that I get embarrassing flashbacks to my bare-all xanga post days as I attempt this.) 

My hand often gets tired when writing by hand, so I generally prefer the written/online post version of record keeping. I suppose there’s a somewhat different voice that emerges on the written page, as opposed to the typed post. Handwritten entries strike me as being far less edited, but perhaps one spends more time contemplating the next sentence before pen goes to paper? There’s so much that is rewritten and rearranged in words reside on screen. I will try my best to refrain from editing and just focus on getting the words out. 

I’ve had a lot of half-formed thoughts floating around in my mind. I’m unclear where they lead to or if they lead anywhere at all.

I’ve been feeling pretty emotionally exhausted -- largely due to work, but the national political climate certainly hasn’t helped. I’m not sure if I believe in what I’m doing anymore. It’s been quietly devastating and crushing to watching things fall apart over the course of two plus years. In that time, I’ve watched bureaucracy at work and lost some of my idealism about public service, and how things get done. Perhaps my lack of creativity contributes to this inability to see beyond current ways of doing things. 

In any case, I think I need a change of pace. This is something I’ve been saying for quite some time, but I feel even less sure of what I’m looking for now. I don’t know what motivates me or sparks my passion anymore. This is true for my professional and personal life.

I fear I have been filling my time with THINGS for the sake of being busy. Like many people of a certain age, being busy has become something I have regarded as a sign of worthiness. Yet in the end, I’m simply exhausted because I’m not addressing any of my priorities or passions. This is difficult when one doesn’t spend time to reflect and identify the aforementioned priorities and/or passions. 

I’m falling asleep so I will try to elaborate more tomorrow, or soon thereafter. 

Holding on to stress and anxiety is crippling me.