The tireless question.
It never ceases to amaze me. I can see the most beautiful things. I can experience so much. I can spend hours with my friends perfectly happy, or hours at work on brain standby. I can go to class fully concentrating on my intellectual pursuits. But when I get home, flip the light switch in my room revealing that it is, in fact, empty, the same thing always happens. I feel a little sad, a little lost. Why? Because I don’t know who I am.
What makes you you? There are billions of people on this planet, and yet somehow we are all unique? Everyone has several “twins” out there, no thought is ever new or original. No matter how hard we try, there is a small group of people out there that like everything we like, hate everything we hate. How are you supposed to find your place in this world? Life moves at a flashing rate. When somebody dies, perhaps one or two will remember you regularly until they die. Even for famous people, people that have made their mark on this world, that mark quickly fades. In a century or two, no one remembers you. You’re just a name in a history book that students have to memorize for twenty minutes before a test. So what is it? What is the point? Obviously, to place yourself in the large scheme of things, to make yourself known in the world, would not be the correct path. That leads me to believe that the point of living is internal. Life is meant to be viewed and enjoyed in the short-term faculty of the temporary, narrow-sighted, easily biased and highly unobjective viewpoint of your brain. Therefore, who you are is who you feel you are, who you believe yourself to be. Life is what you make it.
So what if you have low self-esteem? What if you don’t know who “you” is? I certainly don’t. I wish that I did. Some people say it comes with age, but I’ve seen older people who still don’t know who they are and I’ve seen teenagers that are absolutely, truthfully sure of themselves. Who understand and accept human nature, including thier own. I have noticed that my opinions get more set as I get older. But is that not just the brain accepting and enjoying what it knows? Doesn’t that mean I’m just getting more narrow-minded and set in my ways? I never wanted to be like that. I’ve always prided myself on being more open-minded than most people.
I was thinking maybe it was heritage. People that know where they came from are people that know who they are. Maybe that’s why so many people today look to every conceivable distraction they can find, since so many of us Americans are a veritable melting pot of blood. Let’s see what I know. I know I’m Cherokee. I have the card. But I’ve never felt it and I certainly don’t look it. I’m pretty sure I’m Irish. I feel a little closer to that but not much. As for anything else, who knows? My dad doesn’t know his family. He could, if he wanted to, but he refuses. I don’t think he understands sometimes why I want him to contact them. I NEED to know who I am. Doesn’t he?
Another thing I know. I connect to the Japanese culture unlike anything else. I feel Japanese on the inside. Sometimes I think I’m like a transsexual, only I’m a Japanese trapped in an American’s body. If I wore a kimono, would that make me a cultural transvestite? I definetely don’t understand that. Despite my knowing how I feel on the inside, it only makes me more confused about who I am. Why would I feel these things? There’s no reason. I have this theory that somewhere along my dad’s line, like maybe his grandma or something, there was a Japanese. That would at least explain the feeling. Or perhaps I was Japanese in a past life. Who knows?
So as far as heritage, I’m screwed. What about the land I was born in? I do have to admit that I feel a kinship with Oklahoma. I’m at least the fourth generation that’s been born in Green Country, and I love the fact that the weather can change in an instant, that a tornado could blow in my path at any second, that underneath this layer of dirt there’s strong red clay. I love the hills and I love Muskogee simply for the fact that I know it like the back of my hand. (I’ve always hated that expression. Who stares at the back of their hand all the time? It changes as much as your palms, anyway. Which is constantly.)
Even knowing Oklahoma, I want to leave it. I desperately want to see what I haven’t seen. But neither of these things makes me me. I want to know myself. I look in the mirror sometimes, and don’t recognize myself. And other times I have this picture of myself based on what I feel like on the inside, and when I look in the mirror I’m sorely disappointed. My happy mood stumbles to a halt. In this world of anorexic beauties and the obesity epidemic, where do I fit in? I’m somewhere in the middle. And if it’s lukewarm, you spit it out. I’m constantly worrying I’m falling into one category while frantically trying to reach the other. Meanwhile, I don’t think either of them are beautiful. I just see sad people that don’t know who they are, just like me. And yet the struggle never ceases.
I try to collect things. I lust after the material hoping to build a wall around myself. ‘See? This is who I am. My collection of these things.’ It doesn’t work. And it leaves you broke. So no.
I have obsessions. They serve the same purpose as the things. When my friends are describing me to other people, they can say “Oh, Lindsey, yeah, she’s the one that loves insert Japan/Hello Kitty/Splashdown/indie films/Halo here.” I don’t want to be described like that anymore! I can’t believe I seriously used to believe that this is what made you you. I really did. Ugh.
I don’t know who I am, but I know that she’s in there. My mind. I just have to find her. Maybe it’s in the way I think, the way I see things, the way I write, the things I think about. But I can never express those things the way I want to. And the only time I was in any kind of co-dependant love those things were never brought up anyway. Wait. I just mentioned the unimportance of my mind in relationship to love. No. See. I want love. I miss love. And I know the reason why I want it so badly is because I don’t know myself. When you’re in love, you don’t have to know, because two people become one. You only half to work half as hard to be an individual.
I think if I knew myself, I wouldn’t be so lonely. But then I ask myself if that’s the only reason I want to know. To relieve the loneliness? Seems like a terrible reason to try to figure out the most important question of your life. I had begun, once, sitting on the Fine Arts stage in a class my Junior year, to truly be content with myself. I had taken the first step to being a completely autonomous individual. And two weeks later, Randy told me he liked me “like that.” And when it was over, the precious little success I had made at being myself had been lost. I had stepped backwards, even. And now, two years later, have I really gotten that much further? There are moments when I want to scream at that girl sitting on the stage… to hug her and cry and tell her to just keep going the way she’s going and never let anyone stop her. But I can’t. And that makes it that much harder.
Why am I leaving? Why do I feel the need to go so far away? I’ve been asked that, several times. People truly don’t understand why. And I don’t expect them to, because they have different lives than mine. So why? Because I’m smothering here. I leave my house and I just see memories. I go to work and I realize that my ambitious, intellectual self is dying inside of me. Because although I truly love my friends and my family, I’ll never know who I am if I don’t leave my heritage and my birth land and my memories and my life as I know it. That doesn’t mean I’ll never come back. It just means I have to go, as scary and thrilling and sad and hopeful as that may be.
Maybe I am just a ball of delusion. Maybe I’ll reach a point, years from now, having done all these things and realize that I am no closer to knowing. Maybe so. But no one ever succeeded without failing. And sometimes just the trying is enough. So I’ll take that knowledge with me. And maybe, sitting in a strange environment, surrounded by strange people, I might just realize that I’m the strange one, and be absolutely comfortable with that.
Okay, this is really bothering me. I made a guestbook entry on Duane’s website, and then I tried to make another one, and it won’t let me. Anyway, here’s the gist of it:
The below comment has the attitude of all in good fun laced with truth. Although the writer may be serious in her views, you’re not supposed to see it that way. Below comment + grain of salt = avoidance of conflict. Thank you.
Okay… I was reading Froston’s entry. (My curiosity got the better of me.) He’s only had two pieces of fruit in his entire life?!! That’s the boy’s problem!!! Eat some fiber! Take a shit! You never know what might fall out. You know, like… sticks… and stuff.
So there ya go. Duane, you should put this in your next entry. And “What a choad.” is the second phrase of mine you’ve used!!! I’m not going to be original anymore… sniff Well, technically, I stole it from Matt, and Alesha stole it from me. But… it’s still mine. MINE. My precious.
