Monday, March 31, 2003

We're all a little messed up. It's just how much we admit it, the frame we allow ourselves to see it in. I find people from broken homes and emotional instability to be the most interesting people I encounter. And I think many would agree with me, because there are many who try to indulge the problems they have to appear as though they too come from broken homes and have emotional instability.

I've spent the first 21 years of my life as a level-headed, under-reacting, patient, come-to-me-for-advice person that people admire because I don't get visibly angry, I rarely do things I regret, and I am loyal - making me a source of consistency in people's turbulent lives. This is, of course, a result of who I came from. My father is a former priest turned pyschologist and my mother is a nurse. Two people who've spent their lives helping people and keeping calm in the midst of other's pain and struggles and natural immaturity. I've reached the point in my life when I'm supposed to mature and grow up and become the prodigal son to Reason and Maturity. But all I want to do is make those mistakes I never made. I want to get into a fist fight. I want to fail a class. I want to steal something. I want to be grounded. I want to sneak out. I want to try drinking at smoking well underage. I want to cry in public. I want to spend the night with someone I'll never see again. I want to break someone's heart. But I never did any of these things, and I don't think I ever will. My time has passed, and the adolescent glory and prideful scars that I could have bore, would only paint me pathetic today.

I have my share of problems and issues and resignations about my parents, but when all is said and done, I think they did a great job (especially the more I get to know them as the people they are, not just the all-powerful Mom and Dad of my youth). However, I find myself to be fantastically boring. I know that other people don't, and I have no desire to try and convince them otherwise. But to me, to the face that sees itself in the mirror, I get bored with myself. And perhaps that's a good thing, perhaps it keeps me searching, keeps me struggling to better myself in all directions.

But what will my kids be like? If I end up being the amazing father and husband I've always been told I will be, what will push my kids to find themselves? If I love my wife and children endlessly, giving them shining examples of what love can and should be, where and how will my kids build their own calluses and realize the fragility of life and love? And at what age? I found out early, and I cannot tell you why. I don't know. Maybe it is because I was, for all practical purposes, an only child (my half brother and half sister did not live with us). Being an only child is an unfortunate position in life. You get a lot of time to think....perhaps too much. You learn at an early age how to succesfully be on your own. Of course there is plenty of attention from your parents, but it's not the attention you want or crave, it's merely survival attention. You get used to being alone, but you never get used to being lonely.


But hey, at least I know my place. And once where I am is in line with where I'm supposed to be, I'm sure things will make a lot more sense.