Road Map

Life is funny isn’t it? In a sense we’re born into this world without a road map of our lives and are expected to make the right choices without knowing what that choice is going to do to the people around you or to you long term.

As children we’re told about the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Basically if you want people to be nice, be nice to them. It’s something that over the years we forget because we all want respect. We feel that we DESERVE respect and as such, won’t give any out until some is given your way.

I’m thirty years old as I write this. At this age I’m still asking the question of, what now?

I’m sure none of you are surprised by this if you’ve read any of my blogs. I’m constantly trying to figure things out. Constantly trying to use this space to make myself a better person and by the same token, show you how a person can grow and what are the obstacles that he’s facing that force him to do so.

One of the things that I’ve come to realize in the current past is that with as much bitching as I do about change, I handle it better than most people.

I have to wonder sometimes if there isn’t something broken inside of me. Something that’s sick or twisted that doesn’t feel that I deserve happiness or that I put myself in situations where in the long run I won’t be happy.

Am I perhaps torturing myself because I feel like I don’t deserve anything but malice and anger in my world. I honestly don’t know. I know that I keep getting all of these chances thrown at me and each time I balk, bitch, or decide it’s not for me.

Sarah had me watch Brokeback Mountain just last week. I hated it. Not for all of the ways that you THINK I would hate it but because it made me look in the mirror (Shut up and just keep reading, it doesn’t mean I’m in the closet.) The two characters are Ennis and Jack. They work together one summer high up in Brokeback Mountain watching over sheep and become really close. So close that the line between life long friends and life long loves gets blurred and they cross it.

The thing about it is that they’ll two sides of the same coin. Ennis is unwilling to look past his fear of what would happen to allow the love to take on fully what it should be. Jack on the other hand is willing to drop everything for Ennis thinking that a future with him would be the only thing in his life to make him happy.

They go on like this for 20 years.

Something happens and Jack’s life is snuffed out, leaving Ennis to pick up the pieces. He realizes that Jack has always thought highly of him, enough to talk to his parents about Ennis and the dream that he has for the two of them.

At the end of the movie Ennis is left with nothing but regret, longing and loneliness.

I realized at that moment, watching the screen with Heath Ledger tearing up thinking about his best friend and possibly only true love Jack and how he missed out on a wonderful life long adventure because of his own fear. Because of his own inhibitions and because of his own stigma. He lost everything, without ever reaching out to it, even though it was right in front of him.
Am I living my life like this? Are my own stigmas about myself and life holding me back? Am I constantly looking back instead of forward, worried that I’ve left behind something wonderful and will never find something to equate to it?

I was angry when I finished the movie, I was angry that the mirror was staring at me and that I had to see the cracks in the image. (no pun intended)

I look back at M and I know that I made the right choice but honestly can’t help but be angry and hurt over the fact that I know, I know, if she had followed through and grown with me, there would be something magical between us still.

Now? Now I live in fear that even capturing a glimpse of that will be impossible. That I’ll not live up to anyone’s expectations or someone won’t live up to mine. I’m afraid that I’m just some cipher that was hiding carefully behind someone with more issues than myself.

Do I fear life? No. I fear failing at life and I won’t know whether I did or not until it’s too late.

I asked Jen if she sometimes wished she had a crystal ball, she said yes.

Personally? I wish I had a road map to tell me which way to go.