Seeing Clearly

“ I would much rather have regrets about not doing what people said, than regretting not doing what my heart led me to and wondering what my life had been like…

 If I had just been myself..”

 

I didn’t know. I saw the angry and frustrated parts of me seeping out at all the wrong times.. but I didn’t know why. Now I know why. Last night I read my diaries from the last couple years, and I really saw myself clearly for the first time in a while. I saw all the rationalizations, all the confusion, all the denial, all at once.

 If you were to come up to me and say, “Jillian, you don’t celebrate differences” I believe I would laugh in your face. I celebrate all differences… I love all things in the name of ‘different’. I love different people, I love different cultures, different food. I am ecstatic to be exploring in different cities and surroundings. I celebrate differences…  apparently all but my own.

 Last night I read my words from year after year; words that tried to figure out who I am, tried to figure out and re-shape this longing that I couldn’t ignore… but couldn’t accept either.

All this effort, all this time. Looking through all my old journals, I’ve been writing about the same things over and over again. For YEARS. … for three long years… journals that have been denying who I really am, trying to ignore my dreams and find some sort of middle ground that satisfied my longing and yet felt… safer, more logical.  Over and over again it’s the same thing… trying to think of a new dream, something less scary and mysterious. Trying to figure out the unhappiness in my life. Trying to fill the void.

  I kept searching to my own frustration for an answer that could not be found. Thinking, thinking, thinking way too much. .. And ignoring the answer that was right in front of me all along.

 “ I must be running, I have a thirst for something else, I’m proving, maybe I just want to be married, I’m scared, I’m scared. Maybe I should go back to school, maybe I should move to California, maybe I should move to Colorado. Maybe I should stay with this guy, maybe I’m asexual for not wanting this great guy in front of me. What’s wrong with me..?”

 I’ve FORCED so much life during this time by ignoring my own. Its CRAZY how ignoring ONE THING can upset your whole life that much. The answer was right in front of me for years and by ignoring it I created a whirlwind of confusion.

 “I’m doing it. No turning back now! No regrets!”

and then..

 “I’m not doing it. Its just habit to think about it. I must not know how to be content. I must be running from something… I can’t go. I should stay here and be with this man because I shouldn’t … I can’t.. “

 In one journal where I’m trying to say that I can’t go because this dream is being used to “complete” me, I say, “the travel dream pops in my head every day. But 90% of what you think today is habit. Just recycled thoughts and connections from yesterday”.

 I think it comes from being young, and from doing something that isn’t laid out for you. I just didn’t understand myself, I didn’t know why I had this dream and NO ONE else did. I felt so different that I convinced myself that there must be something wrong with me.

 The past 7 months I have rummaged the pages of facebook, judging person after person from my hometown. I saw face after face of 25 year-olds that are settled, married with children, and I have never felt so alone and different in my entire life. So I judged them for not being like me, and I judged myself deep down even harsher for not being like them. I resented my difference, deep down, unknowingly. And after trash talking them for their differences, I felt awful. It’s not in my nature to judge like that. I knew from my disappointment in myself that those judgments were not as they seemed.

 I didn’t know what I was doing, so while at the same time I was chasing a heart felt dream, I was judging it, picking it apart, analyzing it… never accepting it for what it is. It’s there. What else is there to say? It’s a deep need. The end.

 I wasn’t resentful of what I thought was other people’s judgments, I was resentful of my own. I’ve always celebrated my dreams, but I hated how alone I was in doing it. Now that I can see what actually was happening, I’ve let it go… and just like that.. the judgments disappear. I can see and celebrate my diversity and uniqueness and no longer resent it. I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted. When you are confident in who you are, you feel no need to critique others for their life choices. It took me a minute to see how much I rejected my differences, but now that I can see deep down my heartache from my fear.. it’s disappeared completely.

 I’ve always felt the same about life; that it is a grand adventure to be lived. I have a thirst that cannot be denied. The sad thing is, NO ONE was actually denying it… except me.