Life. What a small word with such an expansive meaning- or vast gamut of meanings- so many connotations and denotations. This word is unique to every being endowed with it. It is the fingerprint of each person’s existence. No finger print the same.
Life shapes us. Life creates. It is indication that a being is breathing, living, changing, growing, surviving. It distinguishes the organic from the inorganic, existence from the nonexistent, animation from the inanimate, liveliness from the lifeless. At least those are the denotative definitions we have to explain life. In many ways those would be easy to stick with. Some times I wish I could understand life in a sentence or two as the dictionary explains it so.
Life, in it’s many facets, has become hazy and unclear to me of late. I try to reason as to why this has become so but I can’t seem to put my finger on it. Is it because I have been thrust out of my comfort zone? Weaned away from my parent’s care? Then, if this is so, do I deny my own ability, in growth, to spurn question and thought? Is it just experience that creates growth in me? Or is it my own intellect that drives my cognitive expansion? The things I stumble upon and wonder- are they product of me or my environment? That is the first step to understanding how I come to this befuddled muck of confusion. I land in this scary place where I feel that my grounding and control I had in life is lost. Like the completed puzzle has just been undone and I’m left to figure out how to put it’s millions of pieces back in place again. Sometimes it feels like I am in a vortex- life speeding past me but I have no control over the direction I fall. I just fall and that’s it. At first the falling is frightening but after a bit it’s more of a hassle than a fear.
This is the place where I feel stuck- or maybe it is a place where I feel as though I am standing still and life is just happening around me. But I know I am not standing still. I continue and thrive. But what is thriving? What causes me to thrive? I go through the day’s motions- check things off my to-do list but is that where I draw my satisfaction? I would say not. Relationship is where I draw my satisfaction. Though an introvert, I find company is what spins my wheels, pumps me up, makes me remember I am loved, and gives me positive outlook.
Relationship, though, is a thick, complexly beautiful branch on the tree of life. What can relationship be defined as? I move to say that each person has his or her own definition. One woman can say that she is in a relationship with the husband that beats her. A man can say he has a relationship with his son from a divorce to whom he sends gifts but never visits. A married couple of 40 years can proclaim that they are in a solid relationship. Of these examples, I may not agree with all but to each specific person, that connection with their other is that individual’s own definition of relationship. Each life that a person has lived will define their expectations, values, understanding, and qualities desired in relationship. No individual beyond ones own realm of influence should define what that individual’s relationships should look like or how they should carry out their life- unless their lives breach upon the safety of another’s life. No matter, this is where life is a fingerprint.
Then I ask myself this: if I agree or disagree with these different interpretations of relationship- if I take and reject thought from each definition- then what is my own? I wonder to myself sometimes if I will ever truly know this. At points I feel as though I have a blueprint laid out for each different relationship situation I may encounter but then again, once placed in context, this blueprint molds to the specific relationship. For example: I know I want specific qualities in a man for a romantic relationship but why, in individual instances, do I pretend certain negative qualities don’t exist when highlighted positive ones out shine said undesired negative ones? My emotional-cognitive side takes over to the point where I shroud my perception of that man with my own, modified, sugarcoated view of him. This facade I create, based off of a model, becomes what I am so infatuated with and desire to see in that model- so much so that when the real man fails to meet my façade’s qualities I become disappointed (This is why I feel God holds no expectations of us). These imagined, concocted expectations drive the later, inevitable disappointment I so often deal with after the end of a romantic relationship. It’s the same circular trap.
I battle over and over with myself on this. Do I become so objective to the situation that I suppress my innate instincts to let something flow and sparks to fly and all that jazz? Will a heart ever be truly guarded in a dating or other situation to the point where breaking up or ending things leaves no sting? I try for this with all my power. At least I want it that bad. For the sting and hurt after the end of a relationship throbs so bad that it is discouraging ever to invest oneself that amount again. Yet chemicals react and my mind pushes me even so once another opportunity arises. My heart hopes this time that it won’t be broken but moves on in, nonetheless, bracing itself as it enters. I fear it become battle worn- used to the blows, the ends, the hurt. I fear it become cold and accustomed to defeat. That vicious cycle of beating faster yet again, enjoying it’s freedom until alas it beats for nothing and returns to its slow, monotonous pulse. I pray for the day when I can comfort my heart to know it is safe to flutter. Oh, but then my mind constantly pulls at me to not await that day lest it become too anticipatory for it.
And it is here I hit the wall. I can no longer figure it out. I am such a complex mess with mind and heart at close disconnect.
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