Sometimes I feel completely out of it....like my life is a car, taking off down the street and for some reason, I'm not in it. I mean, no one would ever know it, because I put on such a normal, happy exterior. But most of the time, I feel like I'm missing out on something. I don't feel like I fit the 'normal' idea of sucess, confidence and overall happiness with life. Does anyone else look around and wonder why everyone seems to have it all, while you're still figuring out what to do? Maybe I never got the instructions for life?? Or maybe it's because I'm creative and sensitive and think too much.
Haha...a little. I tend to be a perfectionist in a way. And it's all about control I think....everything has to be just how I want it. For example, at night before I go to bed, all the cupboard doors have to be closed properly, bed linen remade and even on both sides etc. It's weird, but it's me. But I guess what I'm referring more to is being emotionally disconnected. Not feeling like I fit with other people. I said to my husband the other night that it's almost like I don't feel like a real person. I'm standing on the outside, looking in. And no matter what I do, I can't get in. I'm scrambling to get ahead and feel normal, but nothing ever feels right. I guess it's about not being content. 12 months ago, I thought changing my address was the solution, so we moved 14 hours south. But it was still the same down there, so we ended up moving back. I thought coming back would be better, but now the same feelings are creeping up on me. It's like no matter where I turn, I'm unhappy.
I wrote a short story incorporating similar themes not too long ago. It was kind of good therapy since the protagonist was blatantly me (though a tad exaggerated) in a different person's skin. So I do think I know what you mean and it's the reason that I'll probably always be a bit of a nihilist. Meaning is an invention and success is subjective and relative. If you don't think too much about it it's easier to follow expectations and trends, but if you really pick life apart into pieces, you see that everything we hold dear is worthless without our collective energy holding it into place. It would be absurd for me to try to advise you in any way given my basic belief structure, but I do believe that anyone can be happy and have a successful life by their own standards which is all that is important.
I've felt like that often - I use the car analogy a lot, too, in regards to my perspective on things. I got to a point where I thought "ok, so I'm not actually standing on the outside looking in, I'm just the only insider". Which may be a fancier, way of saying 'no one understands me' - which I realised carried with it a sense of giving up if I'm not prepared to do something about it. I think that sometimes that sense of being on the outside looking in comes from the self, being on the inside looking out, and not quite knowing how to step out into the life, the world around it - through fear, past hurts etc. I've been thinking about this a bit lately, so my response is full of personal bias and may not be relevant to you at all, but just for me, I think I need to figure out who that person on the inside is, connect with them, first. And then bring them out to play. Big time, lol.
Gone Wishing, it's like you're inside my head, reading my thoughts exactly. I never thought of the issue as standing on the inside looking out and not knowing how to connect to the world around me. I feel like I'm seldom understood and always misjudged. Maybe it's because I don't always say what I need to say...or maybe it's becasue I care too deeply about what everyone thinks. I hate myself sometimes for not being this 'person' I'm supposed to be. I see an image in my head of a woman I know is better than me, and she is accepted by everyone. But that she seems so far out of reach...can I ever be that?? Who knows....probably not. Very rarely do I get support in my dreams because they don't fit any mold. I feel like I can't do the things I love - the things that make me come alive. I tell the people closest to me about the things I want to do, but I undoubtedly get that dreaded look that says, "Oh, OK then. I don't really know why you want to do that...it won't pay the bills and you will always struggle and it's not very realistic. But, whatever floats your boat."
I hope we all do, otherwise I'm a freak in a normal society. I definitely don't feel I belong anywhere, and I also feel like I need to, want to, wish I did. I see happy people all the time, but nowhere particular. I think it's just some people are engineered to be happy playing golf, bowling, or shining their shoes. Things that would bore me out of my mind. Happy people can be happy fishing. I'd stand there saying, "OMG! This is so boring!"
I'm like that right now! Everyone of my friends is in college, when I decided to take the year off after high school. I'm going into college in 3 months though, so I feel my life will take off again there. So in college I'll figure out what the hell I want to do with my life. Something in the movies for sure. I've been acting for 16 years give or take, doing special effects and 3D design, and now I am getting into screenplay writing. Movies are my calling I feel. I can't live without movies.
I know exactly where you're coming from, I've been there plenty of times. Eventually I have to stop myself from lamenting who - or what - I am not, or what I have not yet acheived that I thought I would by now, because I already am who I am, and who I am is in a constant state of becoming... if that makes sense. (I maintain that people always are, anyway...cos you never stop learning, and things have a pesky habit of changing, and that has a pesky habit of creating change in the people it affects. So I say, anyway. lol. I don't profess to be a guru or anything XD). So, I don't mind that so much anymore, the idea that I'm not done being me - I shudder to think what would happen if I ever am. I did the thing where I created this other self, the one that gets everything right, the one that everyone likes and accepts...and it just didn't work. Not only because I can never be real, true to myself, like that, she was also kinda high maintenece (for me, I mean) and I ran out of energy to keep that kind of impossible fantasy going on. I figure there are always going to be people who look at me, sadly shake their head and just go 'I don't get you'. That's cool. Because there are a select few out there who will - or maybe not, and actually like that fact XD, and that's even cooler. I know what it's like, also, to get the "that's nice, dear" response to your dreams and hopes. I listened to it for a while, and I let it make me retreat my dreams to something I only kept to myself. But, after a few years, I realised that the energy it was taking to continually dismiss my dreams was far more draining than the energy it takes to chase them.
According to who? Is it the person you think others think you should be, or the person you genuinely want to be? Don't answer this one too quickly. Think about it for a while, after analysing your own writing here below.
I've been with my girlfriend for a year, tomorrow. At one point I became claustrophobic about our relationship and somewhat worn down by keeping up a facade of being a strong and resolute kind of guy. I conceived a cowardous plan and I tried scaring her away by being myself. It kinda backfired, 'cause she said she loved me more and more for each day. I guess that's irony. Now I'm gonna go out and buy her a set of earrings for tomorrow. :redface:
You make me think....it's hard to know. I guess maybe I've let it get to the point where I can't differentiate between what I think I should be and what I think others think I should be. But then again, maybe these two people are both made up. Totally unrealistic. A battle in my head. Now I'm over thinking it!! Haha....
I just mentioned him in another thread, but while you're thinking about this kind of thing, go and find a short story by David Foster Wallace called "Good Old Neon." It's in a collection called "Oblivion."
