A Brief Whine

Over the past few weeks, for the first time in my life as I remember it, I have not felt like myself. Granted, there have been occasions in the past where I have felt estranged from myself or disembodied in an uncomfortable way (a few notable encounters with tequila come to mind), but I have never felt a long-term separation from all that I think of myself as being like I have recently.

Some of this comes from the fact that I’ve started a new job with a new routine, and that always leads to a period of adjustment and redefinition of who you are. I have to say I kind of expected to change a little bit because of this, but I didn’t think it would leave me with this void of self-doubt and confusion about who I was and what I stood for. It’s hard to be locked into a routine that doesn’t allow me time to enjoy who and what I am and pursue who I want to be. The only way I can describe the way my day makes me feel right now is “stagnation,” a striking difference from the hope and optimism provided to me nearly every day by the vitality of the U’s campus. For the first time in my life, I don’t feel like I’m getting better, and it bother’s me terribly.

A bigger portion of it, undoubtedly, is that I feel like most of the people I enjoy really talking with just aren’t around anymore and that my opportunities for quality conversation are few and far between. This might not seem like a big deal, but to an individual that thrives on talking about what is going on or what could be going on, it is personality crowbar that has quickly and efficiently dislodged me from myself.

I know, I know, I sound like the biggest whiner in the world and I am truly sorry that I don’t have something more interesting to write about at the moment. What I’m trying to say through this whole mediocre post is that it’s very hard to stay who I am when I can’t do the things that make me “Me.” How long can we be somebody else before it becomes who we are and replaces who we were? Do we ever have a choice about any of this? Probably not is my guess. Our only option is to go with the flow and try and hang on to a small shred of who we thought we might have been at one time.

Change certainly is inevitable, and the better we are at accepting it the easier life becomes. But that doesn’t change the fact that I miss who I was and am unsure about who I am. Mostly I miss talking with Rory, Ta, Grant, and Mark and looking so confidently down the road towards a better tomorrow.