As I tap this out on my phone, a breeze flows in from the Gulf and the waves provide constant brown noise that cancels out most other sounds. I sit under the gazebo having an existential crisis. This is no big thing, I think I’ve had hundreds of existential crises in my lifetime, to the point that “crisis” should probably be downgraded to “quandary”. (Though I do plan on having a full-scale existential crisis in the spring of 2013, but that is for another post.)
My current existential quandary deals with, as usual, the direction of my life.
The main problem with striking out in a new direction is that the path, being relatively untrodden, is overgrown and dense and I’ve never been great with a machete. But, metaphors aside, there is quite a bit of ambiguity in the future that I’m wondering about, which is not uncommon, I suppose. The future for most people is not super forthcoming. For me, I’m realizing more and more that I want my future to include marriage (depending on the state) and family. This is no huge surprise to anyone that knows me or even to myself, but what is surprising is my strength of conviction on this point. I’m finding myself becoming more and more willing to “do what it takes” achieve this goal.
Given such an attitude, one would assume that I would attach myself to any suitable candidate like a BYU freshman (sorry, guys), but I’ve even surprised myself at how my pickiness is growing. I don’t believe in the “right person”, but I do believe in the “wrong person” and it appears that that particular list is growing. While this seems contradictory to the “do whatever it takes comment”, I think that that manifests itself more in the willingness to push myself out of my comfort zone to place myself in situations where I can meet new people. The problem I’m finding with this, however, is that, by definition, I’m not comfortable and my defenses go into overdrive, locking me down emotionally to the point that it’s almost impossible to get in. So, while I’m doing better about meeting new people, I’m doing worse about letting people have emotional access. Or maybe I’m willing to settle, it’s just the points I’m not willing to settle on aren’t easily found amongst eligible suitors.
Maybe I’ll just move to Utah, since, you know, that always solves everyone’s problems. Heh.
I acknowledge there wasn’t a point to this. I’m not even going to read over it to check for grammar and spelling errors. It’s simply what’s going through my head as the wind sifts through my hair and beachcombers look for crabs with their flashlights.
Maybe if I wait here long enough, the waves, which have seen everything since time began, will explain how all of this is supposed to work.
Nevermind, here come some rednecks; I’m heading back to the condo.
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My mom has been trying to get me to move to Utah for years . . . :)
May I recommend Boyfriend 101: A Gay Guy’s Guide to Dating, Romance, and Finding True Love by Jim Sullivan? You might find this book useful.
Hm…naturally, this elicits inevitable ‘hm’s from me. I’ll leave that at that for here and now.
But I’ll say that I’ve had similar realizations in the past. And yet, my most recent ‘quandary’ has been the importance of building my productive/creative/monetarily sustainable life so that the next time I find someone I’d like to share my life with, that won’t be a limiting factor, even if I do think I’d be totally willing to be the stay-at-home dad in my possible (but fantasy?) future relationship. Until such a time may come, I want to be self-sufficient and financially solvent, and I hope to always be ‘anxiously engaged’. So I’m in the quandary of going not where I can meet someone but where I can best establish financial independence… *sigh* :-)
Ha. So reading this again, I can see how some might see this as a declaration of my commitment to heterosexuality. I can assure you that this is a result of my unfortunate tendency towards ambiguity of late, and no, when I refer to marriage, I’m referring to the only-legal-in-like-four-states-kind.
So, with that behind us:
@Sara – You know what they say, Indiana is the Utah of the midwest. No they don’t. No one says that.
@MHH – I’m consistently surprised that people still read this thing. More power to ya. Anyways, I looked at the book on Amazon. It totally looks to be the type that I would read, post snarky comments about on Twitter, but secretly make a few mental notes.
@JJ – I choose to interpret those “hm”s as concern that your transcontinental stalker is going to show up on your front door step with a box of Fran’s chocolates and an already-filled-out Massachusetts marriage application. Unfortunately, the reality is much less “Lifetime original movie”, and more just a train of thought that started back about a year ago (in a conversation with Jason, actually) and continued through several other key conversations and a boyfriend or two … okay one … until I was sitting on the beach when I decided that it might help to write it all down. The result was kind of a mess and not terribly enlightening. I will admit, however, that my trip to the west coast did serve as a catalyst for forcing myself to think about some things that I’d been avoiding for a while.
The moral of this story: existential crises are a waste of energy and blogging is dead. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s it.
I?m consistently surprised that people still read this thing.
It’s all due to the power and mystery of RSS.
Haha! Thanks for trying to make me feel better . . . :)
I found your future husband. Let me know when I can send you boys kitchen gadgets.
@MHH – You can go ahead and send me a KitchenAid mixer. Just think of it as a pre-emptive strike.