I seem to be bouncing around rather haphazardly through life at the moment, and I'm having a difficult time understanding why I say/do the things that I say/do. I used to have a concrete image of who I was; I had goals, I saw my future, and I acknowledged the choices I would inevitably have to make.
Now, however, I seem to be an entirely different person... or at least I feel different. I'll give you a quick rundown of how drastic some of my perceptions have changed over the past couple months, and while some of them are relatively insignificant, other changes are very high impact.
For one, I used to always want to own a large home in a suburban neighborhood. My reasons for this desire are thus: Before my parents divorced, I used to live in a decently sized home with lots of outdoor space. After the divorce, I moved approximately 13 times, each home smaller than the last, and in some really scummy neighborhoods. At this point in my life, my prerogative was to revive my memories of a happy conjoined family by getting a nice big house on my own.
So far so good, maybe analyzing myself isn't so hard after all. Let's move on.
In my present conscious state, I see myself less and less in the traditional family unit snapshot... the white picket fence just isn't as white anymore. Instead, I now see myself living independently in a very modern apartment looking over a park several stories up in a high-rise. What caused the change? Did my desire for a traditional family dissipate? Could be, but I'm not sure why that would have happened. Living in college could be fostering a sense of independence in me that finds living on my own in the city to be more appealing.
Hey, that seems pretty plausible if you ask me. You know, this might be easier than I thought!
Let's try a topic that's a little more serious...
In the past, I used to be a hopeless romantic. I wrote poems, bought gifts, always did my best to make my partner happy, etc. My significant other was always on my mind, and I constantly had visions of the future: a family brimming with happiness living in, you guessed it, a white picket house. How cheesy and boring does that sound? I rolled my eyes while writing it to be honest - Does that mean I resent my former self? Regardless, when I think about relationships now, I don't see what I used to, and I don't value the same things either. I used to value the idea of a cohesive family unit. Now when I try to picture potential futures with someone else, I can only picture emptiness. What's the deal with that? It's not even an opposite view, I just can't picture anything at all. How do you analyze that? Maybe I just don't know people well enough to be able to forecast the future. Well that could be true, but I never had problems with that sort of thing in the past. How about I just compare the relationship values that I used to have with the ones I have now? In the past I valued love. Now I value companionship. So hey, those values sound pretty similar, so maybe there's no issue here, right? Well there's a problem, I just don't see love and companionship as the same thing. I can't find the words to explain it, but to me they are entirely different. That might come from my inability to define "love," but I'm not so sure.
I've got an idea! Let's visit dictionary.com.
love
–noun
1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3. sexual passion or desire.
companion
–noun
1. a person who is frequently in the company of, associates with, or accompanies another: my son and his two companions.
2. a person employed to accompany, assist, or live with another in the capacity of a helpful friend.
3. a mate or match for something: White wine is the usual companion of fish.
Personally, I don't enjoy white wine with fish, but that's besides the point.
So how similar are those definitions anyways? They seem pretty different to me. I think that when people think of the word "love" they automatically associate companionship with it. If love is present in a relationship, is it automatically assumed that companionship is there as well? The details seem fuzzy to me, and I'm not so sure that it should be assumed that love and companionship go hand in hand. Then again maybe I'm just scared. I've been hurt in the past, and even though I feel like I've gotten over it, maybe I've been traumatized. Maybe I'm just choosing to admire the attributes to love rather than love itself. Did that make sense? Possibly.
Another thing that I thought was interesting is that I used to have problems with honesty and loyalty. I used to constantly worry myself over these things when in past relationships. I always wanted someone that wouldn't lead me to think that they were lying about anything. In other words, I desired predictability. That is not the case any longer. Now I find myself attracted to spontaneity. I want someone who will drive me nuts and keep me guessing. Does that make me a hypocrite? Maybe, maybe not. Who says that both at the same time aren't possible? I can certainly see how both could be present in a relationship, but what I find peculiar is that I am just less concerned with honesty than I once was. Why did that happen? You would think that after being lied to in a relationship on a severe level that one would be more concerned with honesty in future relationships, right? Well for some reason unbeknownst to me, my thought pattern traveled in the opposite direction.
Interesting... very interesting. So I know most of you are probably thinking, "this guy just can't seem to find the right person and it's bothering him, which is why he's writing this blog". Oh ho ho you clever analysts, you. I've actually got a tid-bit of information that might intrigue you: I'm actually not looking for a relationship of any kind. I presently have no inclinations toward the pursuance of any individual.
"So what was the point of all that, Matthew?" Well gee, I'm not really sure to be honest! And I actually think that's the point. I feel as though you can't understand yourself unless there's something that you don't understand in the first place. I know that later I'm going to go over all this again and try to learn something new about myself. I may actually walk away from this knowing less about myself than I did before I wrote it. Hey, have you ever thought about what it would be like to not know anything about yourself? Chaos intrigues me.
So, out of all that rambling, I don't think I figured out why my perceptions changed. I just found some more in-depth questions in relation to the questions I already had. Oh boy. But you know what, I think I like questions. By answering a question with another question, it keeps the puzzle going. I was never one for definitive endings, so I think I'll stop this search here with the questions I've raised.
So where does that leave you then? What are you going to take away from this? Did you just waste your time reading this whole blog entry by some guy who can't make up his mind? Why did you read it in the first place? Hell if I know.
But don't leave yet! I'd like to ask a question that I genuinely would be interested in hearing your answers to:
How do you know if you are who you say you are?
But there's a catch: you can't determine who you are from the perceptions that other people have of you. Ah ha! Not so easy to analyze yourself now, is it?
Until next time, stay frosty.
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