It's a New Day…

Question 2:

 What is love?

Love (in the manner of a couple): The sharing of 2 lives in which there isn’t judgment.  There will not always be understanding but there is acceptance.  Love is a feeling between 2 people in which they “crave” each other in many ways: they crave to learn more about each other, they crave to feel each other physically, they crave to share experiences together,  they crave to teach each other new things and share their thoughts, morals and values with each other.  Love is wanting to help someone through hard times and not make them feel bad but instead try to build them up.  Love is something where 2 people can live without each other but they don’t want to.  Love is being able to appreciate someone in a way and look at them in a way that you know you will never see another person that way and you never want that feeling to go away.  Love is heartache and misunderstanding that makes both parties stronger.  Love is communicating who you are because you want the other person to do the same so you can understand each other more all of the time.  Love is sharing your past life and craving a future life together.  Love is feeling comfortable with yourself when you are with this other person because you know that is all they want for you.  Love is wanting the other person to be just as happy as you crave to be.  Love is feeling the other person’s happiness as well as their sadness, their hurt and their pain.  Love is wanting to take away a person’s sadness, pain or heartache away because you care so deeply for this person.  Love is seeing something in someone that you can’t quite explain but it makes your heart skip a beat and you get excited each and everytime you seem them.  Love is faith in yourself as well as faith in another person.  These two faiths come together to build an unbreakable force.  Love is another person driving you to better your life and reach your goals without even knowing that they are doing that.

Honestly, love should never be complicated.  It should be one of the most simple things in life.  Love is this powerful force that I truly believe only very very few people get to experience.  I, once again, will probably sound pessimistic, but I believe that most people do not know what real love is.  I believe most people go through the motions and fear a life of being alone that they wire their minds to believe they are in love.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe people can really care for each other deeply and truly enjoy what others have to offer and share.  I just look around and see that society has molded us in such a way to believe that we must follow these certain steps to meet society’s criteria and standards and we lose the knowing of what love is.  We spend so much time thinking that we forget to feel.  Love is a feeling not just a concept.  A lot of us fall in love with the concept because we believe we are supposed to.  I am just as guilty as the majority.  I thrive for the feeling of experiencing butterflies when I am with someone and aching to be in their presence every chance I get.  I enjoy missing someone when they are away and having conversations that make me smile so much that my face will start to hurt.  But I must ask if this is what love truly is?  Love can be made up of parts of what I mentioned about but in truth I believe love is two people connecting on a level that goes way deeper than the mind.  Love can be found between two people that truly understand and experience their independence but are able to share their lives and feel the almost unimaginable bliss between each other without any resentment or any pain.  This is not an easy thing to say because it goes against what we are always reading and hearing, but love (the actual feeling) should NEVER be work, it should just be.

Question 1:

If you had an opportunity to get a message across to a large group of people, what would your message be?

There is so much that I want to say to the world.  I do not seek fame in a way in which I am in tabloids or starring on a sitcom but something inside of me tells me that my voice needs to be heard.  If I had this opportunity I would tell this large group of people to just breathe.  Take a moment (or a few moments-or as many moments as you possibly can to absorb the beauty in the world around you).  See the beauty within yourself.  Yes we all have struggles and our lives may be fast paced and sometimes the world may seem like it is caving in on us but there is so much beauty that surrounds us every single day.  I would tell everyone (including myself) to take off the blinders and look at the world through different lenses.  We are so driven by technology and status quos and the newest trends and every day we are forgetting humankind.  We can text all day with someone (or pretty much everyone we know) or even make a plan for a date and never hear the person’s voice.  How impersonal is that?  The world is passing us by and we are allowing it to happen.  I have come to realize that because of this boom in technology I, myself, have changed drastically.  I am still very caring and kind and believe I have great qualities but my ability to communicate with others in person has changed.  What used to be so natural and normal has become awkward and uncomfortable.  The only person to blame though is myself and I am also the only person that can change this…as awkward and uncomfortable as that may be as well.  As individuals we need to be accountable for our own actions.  I believe a majority of us just float through life and just expect things to fall into place and maybe sometimes they will but majority of the time we are the ones that need to make things happen.  Why would people just settle for the minimum when they could have pure bliss?

Of course, I answered my first question with a question.  There it is though…my message to the world: Step back and take a look.  Step away from your computers.  Leave your cell phones at home.  Turn off the television.  Soak up the beauty in the world.  Learn from other people.  See outside of yourself.  Every day has a million different opportunities to learn something new.  I think it would be very naïve and ignorant for people to not take advantage of these opportunities.

Peace and Much Love! :0)

Feb. 1st, 2006 at 2:52 PM

Do you feel like sometimes no one can hear you? No one can relate to you? No one can see you? You are the most secluded person in the whole wide world? Does this scare you? Sometimes being one individual and knowing that not one single being can ever feel your exact emotions or thoughts is frightening because you start to question your own reality and your own sanity. Are we supposed to have the thoughts we do? Do other people think and feel completely different from they way you do or the way I do? Doctors have said that this feeling of being secluded can sometimes be diagnosed as depression(not saying that this may not be true for some-depression is a subject I will not expand on without any backup or extended knowledge) but I see it as a survival of the individual fittest. We have no choice but to only live in our body. We can not jump into someone else’s when things aren’t going the way we want them to or just to see what their emotions feel like when they cry or laugh or say something witty. When we feel irritated at someone’s actions or something they may say we have no idea what the other person is feeling when they are performing these actions or speaking these words. We assume why they are the way they are but how could you tell someone they are annoying you and you need them to tell you their exact feelings they had while doing so. Maybe their feelings and actions had completely genuine intentions behind them or they momentarily became nervous in yours or someone elses presence and spoke without thinking ahead. Even if we did ask how do we know we would get the truth from the other person even if they were willing to give us an answer after being outright insulted. You can’t ask someone why they are the way they are an expect a certain, truth-filled answer. How would you answer a question like that if it was posed to you? People can tell us what they think about us and how they feel about us but we will never know their entire overall view of how they see us as a person. We all know the truth can hurt sometimes but what can be the truth one day can change another. I always think about why people are the way they are (whether good or bad or even both) and I wonder why I am the way I am but I cannot answer either way. I just don’t know. Can I dismiss this all and just not think about it. I wish. Your thoughts don’t just quit because you want them to–they start up even more intensly when you do this.

Mar. 30th, 2006 at 10:18 AM

Since I was a little girl I have been afraid. This fear has followed me through my entire life. I have grown up every year and every day of my life being a nervous person. I worry. I worry constantly. I worry about what others think about me and I worry about what I think about me. I worry about my rights and my wrongs and my beliefs and my understanding. I fight with myself in my head everyday. I can love the way I think and see the world in a moment and in the next I see my thoughts and bringing nothing but more problems–opening the door for more anxiety and fear. I am not a strong person and I admit it. I have fallen into being ignorant. I don’t stand up for myself and even when I think something I am always questioning whether it is right or wrong to think this way. I worry that when I am bothered by someone or something whether at some point in my life I have been guilty of the same thing. I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I complicate life but life is complicated. I have a hard time because a lot of the time I don’t know how to express myself and I can’t pin point what exactly I am feeling. I sometimes feel like I am stuck in that middle ground–like I can’t choose one side. Rarely do I feel so strongly about something that I will argue my point of view. My mind allows me to see all points of views and a lot of times I can relate to both so therefore I am sitting in no mans land with no voice. In growing up I saw my father as a man that stood strongly behind his views on the world–abortion, war, politics, etc. In hearing his poiint of view for so many years I almost felt like I needed to take his point of view-like it was the right way to think and the right thing to do (he never made me though—this is just what I thought) and now growing up I have realized this is not how it is. I see where my father comes from in his points of view but I also see the different generations and personal ideals. I cannot choose because we are all so different—our pasts, our present, our experiences, our genders, our races—I don’t see how it is possible for only one view to be right when we all see through different eyes. The one thing I will fight for is peace and humanity—I wish the world of people would decide that life is about learning from each other and accepting our differences and taking them as they are but I can honestly say I do not see this happening through my life or many lives after mine due to our individuality. Not everyone thinks like I do (which is completely fine) therefore at some point there will always be a conflict of interests, values or beliefs.

How long should we wait before we let our guard down? Should we ever let it down completely? The past has shown me that you meet someone, you slowly let your guard down and then once you feel like you are in a safe place the rug is pulled from under your feet and you are back to where you started—alone and confused. When this happens it feels like you need to put your guard up even higher and when you do this you risk being too defensive and pushing someone away. Its a double edged sword. How much should a person really put up their guard for the sake of emotional protection and is there ever a time when the guard can be taken down completely. When put in a situation of romantic possibility should we tell someone that we have a guard up or is this offensive? We have all been hurt and it has been so cliche to say this when it comes to not wanting to further a relationship or wanting to take things at a snails pace. Should we base our past hurting on future relationships or should we erase the slate completely and always start new and fresh. All people are different right? Should we compare the new to the old?

You know how you hear about all of these young kids experience teenage angst? Well I of course went through this time period myself but the problem is I am still going through it and I am now 28. It’s hard to explain what I mean but I will give it my best shot. Being raised in a household listening to the parental units voice their opinions left and right made me think for a very long time that this was the way I was supposed to think. I have come to realize this is just not the truth at all. Actually sometimes I go against what they say just to get a rise out of them. But anyhow back to where I was going. This angst is a feeling of still not knowing. My priorities just seem to be shuffled and I am unsure of what order they should go in. I can’t make a decision to save my life because good ole Diane must look at all aspects and weigh out all of my options and I STILL DON’T KNOW WHICH DECISION IS RIGHT. Talk about frustrating. I see myself as this person that is just lost going along with whatever happens but really has no set direction. Wait scratch that it is almost like I do not have a label like most people. I know labels sound so judgemental but lets think for a minute. When you think of your friends isn’t there one thing about them that stands out the most. For example; you could have a friend that is a kick ass lawyer and this person you love dearly but when you describe her to others she is known for her work. Do you need another example? Ok, you have a friend that for some reason still wants to be your friend even though you are single and she is married with 2 children. This friend is amazing woman but to the world she is a mother. So I will now get to my point, I have no label. There is not one thing at this moment that someone would differentiate me by. Don’t get me wrong I don’t cry about this night after night but like I have said before it is like being stuck in between a rock and a hard place. I don’t know what I want out of life. I don’t know what is most important to me. For a long time I thought marriage was what was meant for me but I have now decided this is not something I want at all. The idea of a committed relationship is fine but I honestly feel, as ridiculous as it sounds, that once the vows of marriage are taken that without knowing it people give up a part of who they are. I am 28 years old and I look at the statistics and I am sorry but how can I value a “union” that so many people have no respect for. I sound pessimistic but in all honesty I am trying to be a realist. I know that people can change and I guess I just don’t understand how you can promise to love someone for the rest of your life when you are unable to predict the future. Don’t get me wrong the idea is nice and for some people it does work but as thick skinned as I may seem to be I am really a fragile soul. I don’t want to know that I set myself up to possibly be hurt knowing the realism that is life.

So last night I thought a lot about love…suprising huh. I keep wondering if I have ever really felt love? What exactly is love supposed to feel like? Is love missing someone when they are not around? Is love someone that makes you smile and laugh a lot? Is love having someone you can be comfortable with? I have had two relationships in the past where there was the possibility of love but to this day I do not truly know if what I felt was love or not. I complicate things and I know it but I just don’t know what I felt? Out of the two of them there is one that I still think about and I do miss him—does this mean I loved him? When we are truly in love with someone do we just know it? What exactly defines love? I believe in the idea of love and everything that has been introduced to be in my lifetime but I just don’t know if this is something I have honestly ever felt. Again I am faced with many unanswerable questions and even if I were to get some answers do they fit everyone’s mold? I will always believe in love because I see it as one of the most beautiful things in the world–at least the perception I choose to believe in. Everything I believe in I choose to believe in because I want to but never will I know an honest truth. Complete truth to me is an impossibilty. Pessimistic? That is your opinion. The world is full of concepts and questions and although we have been introduced to answers I just cannot say these things are right or wrong just because one or some people have defined them as so. This is why I mold my own world and see and believe things as I want to. I see love as two people that love spending time together. Two people that can talk for hours with no awkward silences and even if there is silence it is not awkward. Love is two people that understand each other and even though they might not always agree with each other they accept each other. Love is being able to tell someone you love them without saying a word. Love is being there through the good and even the bad with no judgment. Love is helping someone through hard times with no questions asked and no snide comments. Love is having a lot of things in common but enjoying learning new things from your partner all of the time. Love is compromise and sacrifice when necessary. Love is admitting when you are wrong and saying I am sorry. Love is friendship. Love is understanding. Love is laughter. Love is believing in someone until the end of time. Love is seeing an unbelievable amount of beauty in another person that you admire so much. This perception of love is my own and whether it is true or not I do not know but I will not compromise this vision. I choose to believe for myself that this is what love is and this is what I want. I have felt some of these things with certain people but I really don’t think I have experienced love as a whole. I almost believe we really only experience true complete love with one person and all of the other times were just pieces and ideas of love. These other times prepared us for the real deal and taught us all of the lessons we needed to know before experiencing what true love really is. This is my perception and the way I choose to see and want things. Will I ask you to agree with me—absolutely not—we are entitled to see things as we wish to. Love is just one of those concepts in life that I desire and I crave more than anything. Love is the one thing whether or not I know the honest truth about that I choose to believe in. Love makes me creative and love makes me smile.

The last few weeks have been hard.  I have struggled.  I am back to a familiar place where I don’t know where I am going.  My path only seems clear momentarily and then it is all muddled.  I can’t quite see the purpose that is at the end of this long road called life.  The one thing I want more than anything in life is to know my purpose before I die.  I may never fulfill this purpose but I still want to know.  It is the one question that ways on my shoulders every single day of my life.    In moments I think I know what I want and think maybe I have already met my purpose but I just can’t believe that.  My heart is too big and my mind is too strong and I haven’t fought the long battle and won yet.  Well at least that is what it feels like.  I haven’t figured it all out yet.   I know I may never figure it out.  Ultimately there may be nothing to figure out but I can’t believe that the kindness in my heart that I ache to give away and the love I want to share serves no purpose.  Who I am on the outside and who I am on the inside are 2 very different people.  The true me will never be expressed in vocal word.  The true me can always be found on paper…through words…through an expression that allows me to say anything and everything I want without feeling one ounce of guilt or self doubt.  Whether I write the words or type them…that will always be the real me.  The real me that is only known by me and me only.  The me that can cry behind closed doors when no one is around because I think about the people I love and don’t know if they know how much I love them because my words never seem to be enough.  To me the words are never enough.  The me that can drive with the windows rolled down with music as loud as it can be that feels every emotion all at once and would hold onto that moments forever if I could.  The me that revisits moments I have written down my thoughts and still wonders exactly what I want out of life.

I want to write a book of my thoughts.  A book that may take me years to write because moments of my life are ever changing and I put the book down to live and revisit it in moments to soak the paper with my words.  I want to express my feelings as I feel them even if it does not seem to follow any chronological order.  In truth I already have written this book.  I have written many pages of it.  Some pages I have kept and some have been long lost.  Some of the pages have been thrown out because in that moment I didn’t see then what I see now.  I want to share this book with the world but would anyone read it?  I want to express my concerns for what I envision the world to be and shout my fears as loud as possible…but can you hear my shout through the words on this paper?  If not then you aren’t listening close enough.

I want to get into the minds of others.  I want to open doors into different worlds that are so unlike my own.  I want to experience true love and true pain so I can say I understand what both really are.  I want to know what makes others tick and see how different the world is behind the eyes of someone else.

I am having one of those moments.  One of those moments when you want to know what it is all really about.  What is my purpose?  What is my destiny?  What is my fate?  I have come to realize through my studies and through my experiences that I am two very different people.  I cannot share with people what is truly going on inside of me.  I cannot let others see my vulnerability.  I cannot let others see my fear and my weakness.  I pose in front of people as loud and boisterous—and try to prove to them that nothing can break me, when in truth I am broken everyday by the materialistic and narcissistic world that surrounds me.  I feel so much animosity and anger toward what I believe is ignorance in a large part of humankind.  My annoyances and distrust of people strongly outweigh my belief in goodness.  Do I like this?  No, I do not but as the popular slang now says, “It is what it is.”  Now don’t get me wrong, I am ignorant too.  I don’t believe there is a soul that walks this earth that isn’t ignorant.  But the difference between a majority of them and me is that I want to figure it out.  I have a hard time accepting that our experiences are not leading us to something, not bringing us to a place that will show us the answer.   Right now I look at myself and see someone that is terribly jaded.  I have put myself in questionable and bad situations sometimes yes but I always wonder why history keeps repeating itself for me over and over again.  I still do not know entirely who I am.  I do not know what the most important things in life to me are.  I want to learn about everything.  My problem is that my past is still in my present.  When one has been disappointed by repeat scenarios so many times, how do we not put a wall up and assume that most people are going to be that way?  Who can we trust?  Who can we believe?  I have lied to others (big and small) so why should I think that others aren’t lying to me?  I guess if I could I would be ignorant to it all but my mind does not work that way.  In ways I have conformed to what society wants me to be but in other ways I fight every norm that is out there.  I am not looking to go walk across the world to figure out my purpose.  I have lived such a life that I would go into such culture shock that my mind and body would go into shutdown.  I have become such an information and technology junkie that the thought of these things being taken away from me gives me small anxiety attacks.  How sad is that?  I want to meet one person that can really make me think.  Someone that does not demean me but instead makes me see every aspect of everything out there.  I want to meet one person that stirs up intrigue from the core of my being.  I have yet to meet this person but if and when I do I am holding onto them with dear life.  I want to share my thoughts and opinions without judgment.  This person won’t contradict everything I say and think but elaborate on it and make me think in other ways that my mind had not opened up to yet.  It is intoxicating to think of the knowledge the world has to offer and I want to learn about it all.  I would love to experience much of the world firsthand but if this is not possible for whatever reasoning then I want to learn about as much as I can.  I want to know what makes other people tick.  I want to know why people do the things they do.  I want to know what is the most important to others.  I want to learn about people’s dreams and fears.  I want to learn about cultures that are so different from my own.  I want to know how people change themselves.  Again, in learning what I have throughout life so far, it is stated that we are more or less formed to who we are going to be in middle childhood (ages 11 and 12 approximately).  Our thoughts and habits have been formed and are pretty unbreakable.  Is this true?  Even though we grasp the concept of change are we really able to get down into our roots and change who have been programmed to be.  My life has been filled with anxiety and self doubt.  I don’t know if this is genetic or learned.  I hate it so much but it is what I know.  I would love to feel completely free and take risks and chances, travel as much as possible and experience something I never thought I would.  I want to meet beautiful people (and I have my own definition of beautiful) that see the world as a blank canvas.  The people that choose to paint their own picture as opposed to being placed inside of one that was pre-painted.  With this being said, I am terrified.  I am terrified of the unknown and of the consequences of my actions.  My actions may have no ill intent but the consequences may not be good in all situations.  I have felt pain throughout my life, both mental and physical, but I do not know if I have felt true, gut-wrenching pain.  I feel that if I did I would die.  My heart would literally stop because I would have no idea how to handle it.

It has been awhile since I have sat down and poured my soul out onto a piece of paper.  Ok well this isn’t exactly a piece of paper but if I ever decide to print it, it will be so bare with me people.  I have felt the urge to spill my thoughts but the times always seem so inconvenient.  I have been looking at my life lately to see where I am standing.  I am trying to decide if I am happy with where I am?

So many people would never guess about me is that Love is what matters the most.  I know he is out there and I believe I intentionally push all of the wrong ones away.   I believe I will know the moment when he walks into my life…that is if he does walk into my life.  I believe we all do have a better half that helps complete us but we may never find him or her.  For all I know mine might be on the opposite side of the world waiting for me.  It is an unknown whether or not our paths will cross.  Maybe they already did but the meeting was so brief or the words exchanged were so minimal that the moment just passed us by.

In so many circumstances of meeting and communicating with people I spend most of the conversation evaluating myself.  Now don’t get me wrong, I listen to what others say and I take it in with completely sincerity but when I am due to speak I am fixated on thinking about how I am conveying myself to others.  No 2 people are the same so therefore no 2 people are going to have the same interpretation of me.  I would just love (and probably hate) to have people give me a complete evaluation of how they view me after a conversation or “hang-out” session has finished.   Obviously, this will most likely never happen and would change me from being who I am but wouldn’t you find it interesting to learn about how people view you?  I mean, think about it…you are telling a story and the person/people you are surrounded with give much commentary and seem to enjoy the story with laughter but when the story comes to an end and you ask for an evaluation you are shocked by the responses.  You were described as annoying and over the top.  Your intentions were only to make people smile because this is what makes you feel most at home and comfortable with yourself.   These are people you really like and care about.  Where do you go from here?  I do realize that this is the reason we don’t get evaluations from people on how we act.  First there is no time and it would be nothing but awkward.  People would most likely not be 100% honest with their thoughts because most people do not want to hurt others feelings.  BUT, these are the thoughts that bounce into my head every day and for the last 6 months or so I have been overwhelmed with the thoughts of how I am perceived.  I can be told 1,000 times that what others think is not important but I do not believe that for even one second.  What others think and how we are treated molds us.

I am always looking for answers to the questions that are most likely unanswerable.

I have been asked 1,000 times over why I am single.  I am not entirely sure why people ask me this.  I suppose it is for various reasons.  Next time I am asked that I am going to ask them why they are asking.  Anyhow, I am starting to believe that a main reason that I have yet to focus my attention on one person is because I have not felt that longing to know more.  I want to experience such intensity with someone that I know my words are heard and truly thought about.  I want someone that can speak to me and turn my whole world upside down and make me want to learn about so many new things.  I am driven by knowledge and new experiences and thus far (without intentionally insulting a whole bunch of people or making myself sound pompous) I have yet to find that person that makes me feel driven in that way.  I believe the right person that completes that part of the puzzle that MAY be missing will not only hear you but will feel you.  Who I am on the inside and who I am on the outside never seem to be the same person.  The person that will ‘’complete’’ me will know both of these people and will know just through their senses and my actions how to ease my anxiety and just live.