A Realization

I went to Utah recently to interview for a job at the aquarium down there (which I don't expect to get), to get a feel for UT as a potential place to live, and to just get away for a weekend (I've been feeling vacation-hungry). As my friend and his wife drove me away from the airport Friday night, I said with a smirk that I'd had enough of Utah and was ready to go back to Seattle. I offered to take them with me. But we stayed. Some of the weekend really got me thinking. I had some new experiences--did new things, tried new food. I had some great, open discussions with friends. Deep relationships were deepened more. By the end of the weekend, I didn't want to leave.

I flew into Sea-Tac about 8 am Tuesday morning and drove straight to work. As the humdrum of the job got to me, and I started contrasting my life here with the experiences I had in Utah, I got depressed. Severely. When my eyes started tearing, I left work to go get lunch. At my favorite Thai lunch spot, I went into the bathroom and locked the door. And I cried. Hard. Gut-wrenching tears. It's been a while since I've done that. I was weepy for a good portion of the day after that. I felt alone, adrift, confused, and emotionally dammed. After a good online chat with one of my Utah friends, I felt better. But the realization lingered: I really don't like my life, in general, right now.

That night, I went to bed wishing I could just not wake up. Wishing I could just vanish from all existence. It's also been a while since I've felt like that.

I don't feel like that anymore. A couple of nights of good rest and some re-adjusting got me out of that slump. But the aspects of my life that triggered that nasty little depression remain. While some of those issues are too complex or too personal to post in a message in this semi-public forum here and now, some--I think--are worth discussing or admitting to those of you who care enough to read this.

I have some friends here (in the Seattle area) whom I love. Friends whose company I enjoy, whom I respect, and for whom I feel a healthy affection. I'm glad to know them. But there's something missing. That depth of friendship that comes from having weathered the "honeymoon" phase. When you see past the masks and facades and superficial acquaintances, and after seeing the uglier parts, you still love them, and they you. Not in a codependent or pitiful way, but a better way, a healthy awareness of their flaws and weaknesses balanced or overshadowed by appreciation for their individual character and pureness of heart. The kind of friends you know would be there for you in a heartbeat if you really needed something, and you them, and the kind with whom you can talk about anything. I suspect some of my friendships here could develop into those, and maybe a year isn't long enough for that to have developed, but it's hard to tell. And in the meantime, I'm suffering for lack of connection.

I miss the friends who come over and sit on my couch, and we chat about nothing important or something deeply meaningful, doesn't matter which. The ones you greet with a hug because there's a natural affection nobody feels the need to squelch with touch aversion, and nobody spends too much time worrying about how a simple hug or a hand on the shoulder will be misconstrued.

In returning from Utah, I went from being in a place where I felt emotionally exposed (and comfortably so) to my friends to a place where I feel guarded again. Masked. Misjudged (in subtle ways) and only partially or inaccurately appreciated. Don't get me wrong--like I said, I do love my friends here, and we only have a year's acquaintance to go from, and I'm sure I do the same to them, but the contrast was what shook me up. And I realize most relationships in life are this sort of partial level, and that's OK. But it's nice to at least have a couple of people around who know you on a deeper level. I'm not used to lacking that, and I'm thinking I might be responding to that lack by becoming even more guarded...a sort of self-defeating cycle.

In addition to that, I realized more fully how little I've taken the reins in my life. How I've sort of calculated but mostly tried to let opportunities fall into my lap. I realized how little direction I have in most aspects of life and how uncertain of everything I really am.

I felt like so much of my life is a complete waste. How little I've accomplished. How the things I have, in fact, accomplished, have gone to waste because I always moved on to something else instead of carrying it through to something more. But not really regretting that at the same time, because I've valued all of my experiences. Just being frustrated that there doesn't seem to be enough time in the world.

I realized I don't know what I want from life. What I want to accomplish. What career I'd like to pursue.

Something really interesting came of all of this, though. In my raw vulnerability, I realized something: I've not been myself. I remembered some of my true strengths and beauties that I've covered in layers of exploration and disguise, albeit unintentionally. I realized that when I came back from Utah, I felt like a core part of me had been kind of restored, brought out somehow. And when I came back here, it started fading away again right away.

That's not to say I have to go to Utah to bring it back out. It's just that something about that trip reminded me of a valuable part of myself I had somehow forgotten on the back burner, and somehow, I need to reclaim it. My concern for others. My interest in what's behind each person's eyes. My drive to make life a little better for each person around me. My thirst for truth and light. Something of love was rekindled in me, I think. Pure love. Love that results in concern, interest, action, and respect, even where little seems merited. And simple authenticity.

And it dawned on me more clearly: for whatever reason, whether because I feel unloved or unlovable, or because I allow distractions, or because I have covered myself with a hard, protective coating, perhaps my feeling of shallowness of relationships is because I have been reluctant to see people, through love, in their purest form, or even simply to express appreciation and affection.