My Existential Crisis

Remember when I saw that existential crisis approaching and I had that JD-esque fantasy of my brain ejecting itself from my skull to avoid said oncoming crisis?

 

Yeah, well, unfortunately my brain did not eject itself and I'm currently there...in crisis mode.

 

By nature, I am curious. I question the world around me, I like to figure out how things work so I can understand them better. I just want to understand. However, the older I get and the more complicated life becomes, not only do the questions pile on exponentially but their answers become more and more vague. I'm discovering that the more you understand, the more there actually is to understand. You answer one question only to unearth fifteen more, each just as mind-boggling as the one you just answered (that is, if you truly trust that you've answered it in the first place).

 

I have questions. A lot of them.

 

Who am I? How did I get where I am? Where am I going? What am I supposed to be doing? Am I supposed to be doing anything? What is my purpose? Does anybody have a purpose? Is this the way that life should be? Should life be any specific way? Can I change? What can I change into? 

 

I've asked myself these questions before, but this post-OAOA reflection brought about by several friends pointing at me and asking "Who are you without someone?" and me being unable to answer it has catapulted my thoughts into an ocean of uncertainty.

 

Does this happen to everyone? Is this normal for my age? Is it happening to me early? Is this happening to me too late? Where do I stand in comparison to everyone else? What does it mean to be happy? What am I searching for? Is it outside of me or inside of me?

 

What the fuck is going on?

 

I look back at my life and feel like I've lived about seven different lives. What happened to those? How did those add up to where I am and who I am now? I am beyond puzzled. Everything I look at in my life seems foreign. The people, the places, the sights, the sounds, they're right here in front of me, they're familiar, yet they're distant and unwelcoming. I recognize the faces of my friends and family but when I look deeper I find myself asking "Who are they? When did they become who I'm looking at right now?"

 

The people, the objects, the ideas that I once had that I believed defined me, they don't exist in my life anymore, so now I'm lost. And I feel like one of the reasons I'm desperately searching for a significant other is because I'm DYING for someone I trust to tell me what I should or shouldn't be doing, simply because I don't trust myself to answer any of the questions I've poised here in this post.

 

I'm becoming keenly aware of my own mortality. Not only do I know my days are limited, but it feels like I'm getting swept away by the raging river of time, faster and faster, and that my limited days are actually coming to and end rather quickly.

 

It feels like panic. It feels like a crisis. It feels like every second that I sit here trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing or feeling, I'm wasting.

 

I'm an adult and I don't feel like one. I'm jealous of my nephew because my mother gives him the attention that I want. I'm 25 and I still want attention from my mother.

 

I'm supposed to be flying, soaring, happy, full-grown and on my own. But I'm not. And I'm not allowed to depend on her or anyone else anymore. I have to depend on myself. But I don't trust myself because I don't know who I am or what I want or what I'm capable of.

 

I have no fucking clue where to go from here.

 

-K