yesterday i shared an increasingly rare hour or so alone with two of my best friends, which turned into a now-infamous moment of catharsis. through our discussion about the general stupidity of the american population, how we want to be nothing like them but don't know exactly what else to be, and our frustration/optimism about the future, i was able to get out a lot of the thoughts i'd been keeping to myself and i actually discovered some things i didn't even know i felt. i could never recapture the conversation here, but i will make an attempt to reveal all my contradictory, selfish, aspiring lunacy as best i can.

the three of us were sitting around actually doing some sort of work when the conversation began. i was reading my poli sci book and kept coming up with strikingly laughable statistics - 89% of the public say they are 'very patriotic' (before 9/11) yet so few go further than wearing a flag on their shirt to demonstrate it and somewhere in the vicinity of 70% of the population consider politics to complicated for them to understand. and here are the stats that kill me: 28% agree that 'the majority has the right to abolish minorities if it wants to'; 33% agree that 'almost any unfairness or brutality may have to be justified when some gerat purpose is being carried out'; and 35% agree that 'the true american way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.'

this is, to say the least, a very disheartening picture of our country to people like us. we are the ones, if you'll recall, who dropped our school's militant leadership program over their pro-westernization anti-free thinking leanings. and as a political science major who is passionate about these things, it makes me sick. i think i am a little less upset by all this than lani and shawn in that i wouldn't go so far as to say patriotism is a bad word; i consider myself a patriot, and i am proud of my country, on the whole. it is blind patriotism i object to, just the same as blind faith, and the perversions of that ideal. it seems people in general either unquestioningly believe in everything america is, or attack everything america is. neither approach is of any benefit - where are the people who are actually seeking to make things better?

so that brought us to a more general, relevant-to-us topic - where are all the people actually seeking to make themselves better? i can't believe all the people i see around me content to live their lives as they always have, content with no meaning and no point, content with simple routine. maybe it's easier that way, but oh, i could never do that. i don't think i could ever be happy with myself and my life, i don't think i'll ever be satisfied. the day i say that's all i need is the day i die. it's that simple. i need something to strive for, i need to constantly try to better myself, to be better for the people i love, to find some purpose in everything i do. without that, i'm nothing. i need to keep trying - i need something more.

to have something to strive for is one thing, a very good thing - but when you look at an extreme case like me, you realize that with this comes the truth that i can never be truly happy. if nothing is enough for me, how can i enjoy what i do have? there's something in me that is so restless i know i can never commit to anything or anyone for any length of time. i have the attention span of a three-year-old. i had the perfect job this summer, and after a month i couldn't stand it anymore. i had the perfect relationship, and after four months it became somehow less than i expected, not enough for me. i am so, so transient. how can a person like me really function in adult society?

i want and expect too much, i know that. i am selfish and i can't anticipate the sort of charmed life i'm requesting. but here are my demands anyhow. i can't be tied down to anything. i can't allow myself to fall into any kind of lifeless routine all adults i know have. i can't wake up at 35 and wonder where did it all go wrong. if there is any job i can do, it has to be one that affords me considerable freedom, with little supervision and few colleagues, yet still have interaction with a changing group of people, and some opportunity for travel. a job an introvert like me won't be overwhelmed by and one the adventurous side of me won't be bored by. any ideas? because the fact is i have no idea what i want to do with my life, and that scares the shit out of me.

i'm an all-or-nothing sort of person. i do recognize that as one of my faults. if i can't have perfection then i want nothing to do with it; i know perfection does not exist, and so i cannot exist in the society i'm obligated to. so you can follow the path to the pretty terrifying conclusions i'm apt to draw.

i'm just not cut out for anything the traditional way of living dictates i should want. i don't want a stable job that pays the bills. i don't want to be responsible for anything or anyone. i don't want to be owned by anything or anyone. i want my freedom, i want to be self-sufficient and strong, i want to not need anyone but to want many people.

what i'm really getting at is this: i'm not the marrying type, and i'm not the mothering type. marriage is kind of an unnatural state just from a scientific/psychological standpoint, but we all still want it. i still want it - that image of lifelong bliss, the idea of growing old with someone, and of course the wedding day. but you know, aside from everything else, i can't imagine being able to stand another person enough to go through that much of my life with them. going through lifes ups and downs as a part of a pair - that sounds as much a curse as it is a blessing. i don't want to reach a consensus in my affairs; i want things done my way. eventually i can reason it out to the point where i understand that the only person i could truly be happy with long-term is someone exactly like myself, and even if such a being existed still he would drive me crazy. and besides, if i really only want myself, then why not just stick to myself. you know?

so it comes down to this heartbreaking decision i came up with a year or two ago. i have two options: either commit my whole life to one person and watch everything we had slowly die, eventually resent him, but hopefully retain some sort of pleasant companionship, or go through a series of meaningful if short relationships and endure the constant string of endings that entails. one long slow end, or many short painful ones. it seems to me you just can't win. but what is the alternative? you can't stop yourself from loving. so you love whom you love and see where it leads you. if it all just ends up sucking ass, might as well enjoy the good times while you can. and i've gotten over the thought that i really ought to have some sort of counseling before i try the whole relationship thing again. now i realize i really ought to just change my ideas about what a relationship should be in terms of who i am.

and i don't think i'm meant to have children. i have, for as long as i can really remember, said that i don't want children. that suddenly changed last spring when i thought i was finally in love and it would be forever and we'd have this crazy naive life and when my sister had her baby. but at some point i had to realize that what is right for shawn and janice and chad isn't necessarily right for me. i don't fit with that expectation of society. if you read my archives you can see the sudden change - one day i'm adamantly stating i will never have children, the next i'm envisioning myself as soccer mom. i clearly remember that day in the park, shawn and i, he asked me something along the lines of 'you want kids someday, right?' and i was thinking, how could you think such a despicable thing about me? but instead i said 'yes,' and realized i believed it, in the moment at least. but so little of what i believed once can i trust now. who knows - maybe i will grow up and settle down one of these days. i'm always open to change. but i just don't see myself as anybody's mother. it's just that i want too much for myself.

but none of this is to say i am unhappy. quite the contrary - i'm not sure if there has ever been a time in my life when i've felt more optimistic about the way things are. that just gives me more energy to strive to make them better. for all the years i've been trying to change myself, this is the first time i've started to feel like a different person, the first time i've been able to step back and know that something about me has fundamentally changed. it's nothing too sudden - i'm no different than i was five days ago, but i am certainly noticeably different than a year ago. so many things that scared me before are nothing to me now. i am so much more confident, which means that i am so much more capable. i feel better. i have a general feeling of relief and well-being about me right now that serves to reinforce the belief that i am headed in the right direction, i am making the right choices. and if i could figure out what it is, that i could make my perfect life come true. it makes no sense but i operate on the fact that the more pessimistic and frustrated i get, the better my outlook becomes.

so there it is, if you can make any sense of it. it's a lot to think about, a lot for me to sort through. but then, what would i do if that weren't the case?

and it's hard to really understand anything when i know so much of my mood depends on what color i currently have my toenails painted.

i'm so afraid if i close my eyes i just won't see what's outside..