at a loss

Do you ever feel like it would be nice to be told what to do? I’ve had that feeling a lot lately, which is strange, because I am the type that chafes under most any type of restriction that I feel unfounded or unneeded. It is a part, I suppose, of growing up, the moment when, finally, you have the final say and the final responsibility for where you are and the roads you’ve taken. Which is, on the one hand, a great thing, a state of freedom that is what teenagers dream about and those locked into the dull routine of the everyday imagine as the be all end all of existence. And it’s great, really. Mostly. Kind of. It’s great in that there is that control, the self directed urgency of feeling that marks you as being the final arbiter of what you do every moment of every day. Don’t like where you live? Move. Hate your job? Quit. Need a new mp3 player? Go buy one. Want to eat Oreos for dinner? Sure. So that’s nice.

But what about when things go so far in that direction that we are not beholden to anyone? There’s obviously something reassuring about having the final say be someone else’s at least part of the time. In a sense, it’s freeing to realize that sometimes there are some things that one has to do, requirements that come from the outside rather than in, needs that are constraints rather than a casting off of chains. I’ve forgotten what that feels like–and I don’t mean things like work or school, where it’s kind of obvious that you have to toe the line and show up on time and do what you’re supposed to do. I mean the personal sense of obligation, the expectations of friend and family that we all need to guide our decisions. That’s what I miss. Not that having friends and lovers tell you what to do is the best way to exist, but that’s not what I mean. It’s more subtle than that, more complex and yet simpler. It’s like…..when you live with someone, you should clean the house. Not necessarily because you’re enthusiastic about cleaning, but because you know that you have to work together to not live like pigs. It’s wanting to work out because you know that somebody close to you, maybe in the next room, cares whether you have a strong heart and a decent looking body. It’s reading books because you know someone is going to bring them up and ask you about them, it’s wanting to go out to dinner to spend time with someone, not just to eat.

It’s the existence of something other than vacuum. I wrote here about how we are all just parts of a web, connected together by innumerable strands and strange ties. I just feel like mine keeps losing strands, and yeah, I’m weaving some new ones, but that doesn’t make it the same.

No more emo, I promise.