What’s more important: who you are or who you want to be?

And which one is tougher to determine? I’ve had some really good conversations lately with Andy, Meredith, Maria and Tori. This makes me feel good, feeling like there are meaningful relationships in my life that not only go beyond small talk but beyond even similar interests or senses of humor. Still, I’m somehow uneasy lately, the stir craziness still gnaws at me. I know where it’s coming from, old feelings that I had distracted myself from have been re-engaged and perhaps worse yet for calmness; embraced. I’m looking for an outlet for this right now, but in an attempt to not be a burden I’m keeping it inside and redirecting it here. I’m not trying to be a martyr, but as usual it’s very difficult for me to ascertain the difference between what’s reasonable and what’s not.

I have to wonder if there was anything I wanted to be when I grew up and how young I was when I stopped having such desires. I don’t remember having any. I’ve always been a tinkerer, distracted by shiny objects and more interested in toying with them than in life itself. Still I’ve also always been fascinated with the world and consider myself an observer, hard to keep in one place too long, much more excited about what I get to see than what I get to have.

I do remember having goals about who I want to be, instead of what I want to be. I have to assume they’re pretty typical, after all everyone sane wants to be caring, smart, useful, etc. What’s interesting the lack of desire to be anyone of great power or wealth, which I’m slowly coming to terms with those desires being much much more popular than I expected, or maybe would have hoped.

As time passes I come to more and more realizations that probably are better described as growth. I feel like I’ve long known that there’s a difference between knowing something and experiencing it, and that’s what I’m talking about. I had an really interesting conversation with Andy today about racism and having a hard time appreciating the hardship when it’s subtle such as in a language way; that is when a word isn’t used necessarily to communicate malice but implies deficiency because it’s accepted or understood by the general public to mean that. I have to search for similar experiences in my life to try to find a thread of experience. I feel like I could read piles of books on the subject and graduate with degrees in smartyness but I won’t feel for the cause unless I can find some way to relate emotionally.

I’ve been revisiting many experiences in my head, mostly by order of importance of where I’m going with my life, and seeing where my feelings and understandings have changed significantly enough that I can come to first, or better, conclusions on the matter. It’s difficult, especially not having a great outlet. I haven’t seen my counselor for a couple months due to her illness and I’m reluctant to try to build the connection we had with another. My parents are somewhat disconnect from my life because they’re so far away, but my father decided long ago that he didn’t want to have to deal with feeling if he could avoid it and as such now avoids such conversations. Mom is great but I often fear she’s a little too concerned about my well being, as she should be, but it makes her somewhat biased. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t accused me of being a jerk before, which I certainly have, so I’m sticking with that. Maria gets the full impact of my emotions as it is, with the other troubles in her life, and my difficulty talking to her because I’m still figuring out how to separate thoughts from feelings with her, I try to give her a break. Which leaves my Seattle friends mostly as the people I interact with regularly. More and more I’m building bonds with them where I don’t fear that my rants are going to be blown off in a “grow up” / “take it like a man” / “get over her” sorts of stereotypes, which is awesome.

Having always been a pretty emotional temperate fella most of my life, the most interesting time of my life to look at in retrospect to peer into my soul is definitely while dating Maria. We knew each other for years before we dated and we’ve been friends for years since. I always had feelings for her but it wasn’t until we dated that I got to experience just how strong they were. I’ve never found a way to communicate this either. I’ve never been a violent person and figure it comes from being unable to remember ever being angry. If I think about when I’ve been frustrated with people I’ve always had a desire to remove myself from a situation and let it blow by and deal with the future if needed than take anything out on someone. At first glance this is a good thing, but it’s interesting to analyze and see perhaps how much feelings are not embraced in this.

What’s really interesting about my feelings for Maria at the time was how it was a magnifier for many other bits. I don’t have great self-esteem, but I’m certainly happy and comfortable with myself these days and bullocks to anyone who has a problem with that. Meanwhile I’m not arrogant or cocky that I know of, and I’m happy about that. Somehow while dating Maria I found myself taking so many normal conversations as me being an unliked person. I’m having a hard time thinking of concrete examples at the moment, but I’m not very good at remembering conversations anyways. The point being is somehow that vulnerability often left me short and edgy. I feel like for so often I operated in a defensive mode that was automatic rather than personal and empathetic.

I often feel like growing up anti-social left me lacking in many experiences that my peers had. It reminds me of this story for Rurouni Kenshin about this child who saw this samurai bandit fella come into town and do some sort of ass kicking. The kid wanted to be just like him, have his kinds of skills and went off and killed lots of people fighting everyone in an attempt to be such a bad ass. One day he met the bandit again, they fought, and the kid now grown up easily one. He realized that he had actually far surpassed the bandit and the realization triggered seeing that his focus was in the wrong places. The point of retelling the story isn’t that I’m secret badass, it’s the focus. Life isn’t about what you want to be when you grow up, or about what you want to be when you retire, or when you get a raise or a promotion or whatever. It’s about what you’re doing now.

As I think more about where my experiences are taking me next in life, I’ve been thinking more about where I’ve been. In the process I’ve been coping with some of the past and re-evaluating parts of myself. I’ve been thinking a lot about that loss on reason ability while dating Maria, why it happened and how to deal with the future. Meredith and I were talking about love and the definition of it and came to the topic of love being an action, not a feeling. Whereas love is selfless giving rather than some physical or emotional desire. I have a hard time putting myself behind that 100% because I pigeon hole myself a romantic. Not a completely unreasonable one, but I like liking someone. Perhaps on some subconscious level it’s about putting yourself out there and exposing this emotional hole and the happiness that comes from it being filled. I don’t know, that’s too deep a concept for me to argue.

On the road of life, there are distractions and things worth living for. Being in love is worth living for.