Introspection

I don't feel like I write a lot lately about how I feel or the visceral, life-changing things going on in my world. The reason for that - and I guess I'd figured it was obvious - is that there just isn't a whole lot going on. A lot of my feelings about where I am have been lost in the shadow of my ongoing anxiety about where I'm living, action about which has basically been put on hold until the new year. And, there just isn't much going on in my life right now; it's staying pretty static. I read, watch TV, see movies, game with friends, and hang out with a few friends in other contexts (like Saturday with Lucy, John and Sei). And while much - most, really - of this is enjoyable, a lot of it I can see doesn't make for interesting reading.

How am I feeling lately? Well, I spend a lot of time distracting myself from thinking about how I'm feeling, which is why I do all those things I do. I'm trying to hold on through the holidays until I can hopefully get moving on things in 2000.

I spend a lot of time feeling lost. Today I felt for much of the day like I don't know what I'm doing with my life. Nor, really, what I want to be doing with my life. My trip into nearby downtown on Saturday heightened this feeling; it just made me realize how this place isn't feeling like home. And there's a lot of uncertainty in my mind as to whether it will ever feel like home. How much of this is due to my particular location in the Bay Area? Probably a lot, but I also don't want to feel like moving to a better location will be a magic bullet.

Besides, I felt this way back in Madison from time-to-time. But there, I was living in a city I knew well and liked a lot. It was familiar. I get very attached to things, and I haven't yet gotten attached to much in the Bay Area.

It's pretty obvious from my journal, I think, that I'm a worry-wart. I've always tended to get wound up about things, but it's much more common today than it was before I left school. I used to really 'live in the moment' (and people had commented on that, too). I didn't worry a whole lot about the future, figuring it would work out if I put in the effort. But these days I worry a lot about the future. I worry about being over thirty, still single, and not much likelihood that that will change in the near future. I worry about whether I want to stay here in the long term. I worry about whether I'll be able to afford to buy a house or condo that I would actually want to live in. I worry about how I can meet new people, especially people who share my particular (and quirky) interests. A lot of major life issues and decisions that I just don't know the answers to. A lot of angst.

Sometimes I do get into a mental state where I can ignore all or most of that stuff, without busying myself so I can be distracted from it. Those are nice times. But they don't happen all that often.

Plus, I have a mentality where I spend a lot of time making gradual progress on a variety of things: Home projects, exercising, work, reading, etc. So I'm always extremely conscious of what I'm doing and how it's going and wondering if I'm doing enough, and trying to make time to push through a little more of it. It actually gets pretty stressful. I sometimes think I neglect my kitties because of all the things I'm trying to focus on, either going off to do things, or working at home on things that keeps me away from them. (Sure, kitties sleep 18 hours a day or so, but even so, that leaves a lot of time that I could spend playing with them, which I know they love.)

I guess this is why people take vacations, huh?

I commented to Rebekah that I often feel scared by the adult world. I often feel overmatched by it, like I'm either not measuring up, or like I'm on the edge of failing to measure up. Intellectually I know that in many key ways I'm doing fine. But I still feel awfully intimidated by the world. And when I feel intimidated or scared, my reactions tend to be to either to withdraw into myself, or to try to gain control over situations, which involves trying to understand everything about them, and micromanage them so I can do them perfectly.

This inclination toward control I think is also why my journal comes off as rather dry and stiff much of the time (or so it seems to me). Except when something goes horribly wrong (like this example from early 1998), I tend to keep my writing under stiff control, trying to be as accurate and precise as I can, which I imagine filters out a lot of the emotion. (I'm sure this whole entry reads much this way.)

Somehow, this seems like a suboptimal way to live.