Drums Keep Pounding a Rhythm to the Brain

I can feel my heart racing anxiously all the time. Anxious to be awake, anxious to get going, impatient to be waiting for whatever reason: people, traffic, plane rides. Ready to be doing. It thuds a worried rhythm, palpitates uncomfortably while I wait to do whatever it is I'm suppose to be doing. But what I know I'm suppose to be doing isn't what I want. Or, it is... but my entropic side can't settle long enough or agree upon doing it.

When did all of this start? This needing, or rather this inability to sit still? Coupled with my relative laziness, it's all I can do to let go of a persistent urging that has no direction.

If it were a desire to succeed, I'd know exactly how to be. Like my mentor, I'd live, breath, and likely die in my work. And that would be enough. That would be meaningful. If it were a passion, a novelty, a will to do one thing; I could easily focus my excess energy on that one thing. If it were a place or person and being in that state of mind were my only goal, I would not feel so restless.

My constant need to change and absorb and surpass drives me to avoid all sedentary pursuits. And at the same time, the lack of understanding, the unanswered question as to what or why leaves me at a loss. Watching TV is not what I want to do, but for a lack of aspiration or interest in anything else - paired heavily with the lack of any real necessity to think which is the only way to turn off my brain and thus stop in that moment - I indulge in the activity that most perpetuates the feeling.

I used to read. I used to enjoy the chance to escape, to learn, to explore the world beyond my door when in no other way could I have done so. Now, when I have come to fully understand what it is to "experience," I can no longer justify wasting the time to read. That is, unless it is the only other activity available to me.

I think, in that case, I could very easily be happy on a deserted island with an endless supply of books.

But why, when I know precisely what might alleviate the sedentary panic, do I not feel impressed to do it? As if I am depressed to the point of being bored by boredom itself and would rather become a vegetable than do anything that sounds even remotely boring or, contrarily, hard to do.

Where, indeed, has my ambition gone? What is my passion? And why has this passive abhorrence of passivity developed?

I hate going to see movies when three hours in a dark room with a group of friends could, these days, be called an "experience." It is not as great an experience as the one I could be having... though, that does not guarantee I would be having it, anyway.

That! illustrates my point most vividly. I am so caught up in what my experience could be, that I forget to experience what it is. And sometimes I am anxious that what it is, is far greater than what I am experiencing.

But this does not answer the why. Why have I grown into this ever fearful adult? As my mother says, I've never been this way -- though that is not strictly true.

My earliest fears have revolved around loss. Loss of friends, loss of family, loss of house and home, loss of life, and so on. I've been terrified of fires, of burglars, of unnecessary bodily harm. I've been afraid of abandonment and I've been afraid of being left out. Perhaps this is the stem of my fear of missing out on the present and future?

Though interestingly, I love change - insofar as I've come to associate change with experience and ultimately, status. Which brings me to another point not wholly unrelated. I worry too much about my status in the status quo. My insecurities (as are everyone's) are driving my stress. If I worried less about those Joneses, I'd probably worry less about wasting time. But, as it is, I haven't kept up as well as others my age.

Do I have a husband? A dog? A powerful job? Job security? Income? European vacations? Drunken one night stands? A career network? The right college degree? And, as an aside, who the hell decided we must past these milestones to become a full-fledged adult?! To be able to sit back, relax, and reflect on all of our achievements?!

If I weren't so fueled to reach the interminable goals of society, then would I wake up to a racing heart that says, "It's 6am, stop wasting the day!?"

Airplane Shots - Take 1

Every date-like activity you go on will be a date-like activity until you tell me you've stopped liking her.

I can't stop thinking the wrong things, and I don't understand why you continue to encourage it.

I had a wonderful dream last night about the wrong man.

How can somebody have everything they could ever want and not have the one thing that everybody thinks they need?

I want to learn how to snowboard.

I wish I could volunteer for a living.

I don't want to be accountable, I just want to participate.

What if I stepped through the looking glass into the life I wanted... would I be happy?

I don't understand people who try to avoid the highs and low... that is what makes life worth living.

I love my dad in a way that I wish every little girl could experience... those without a dad must miss so much.

SHE... was the kid who ruined Santa Claus for everyone else.