Chrisonomicon

Sunday, October 21, 2001

When the undertow of change pulls you out to sea, you let it. Don't fight.

The familiar tug catches me every month or so and sweeps me out into a blue abyss of activity. Long ago, I realized that things must be in a constant state of change for me to be satisfied in any way and stability is, itself, only a momentary change from the metamorphosis that is my life. I feel close to the earth and its changing: the trees shedding, the days exhaling, the air biting.

The current picked up last night, and without even consciously recognizing it, I began to reorganize my closet. It always starts out small. Slowly, it spread to the rest of my room, the house, my car, and before I knew it, I was looking for a new place to live. I needed a new place to live. I craved change like I hungered for my next meal.

Could this be an outward expression of inner dissatisfaction or turmoil, or is it a natural aspect of my personality that keeps the flow going? I've tried to restrain myself during these times of tremendous urge--to take a step back and look at what's going on--and I've leared the best solution is to let it run course. My pragmatic half usually gets the better of me after a few days of swimming in the sea anyway.

I've also been working on trusting my gut instincts. This probably goes hand-in-hand with that, since most of these whims tend towards reflex and intuition. But am I being true to that intuition or simply compulsive? I keep thinking that if I ask the right question, the answer will be evident. Maybe I need to stop drawing things in black and white and let the answers come to me.

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Campus walks are great at this time in the year when, at any moment, you might be snapped by a publicity photographer, promoting the school in the next freshman catalog. Leaves crackle underfoot and fill the air. It's beautiful. Looking at the snapshot of me walking across campus in next year's brochure, I'd think, "Wow. Everything in my life at that instant... was perfect."

But it's not.

I know what you're thinking: Just another whiny journal entry. And granted, I suppose I really ought to be focusing my energy towards cultivating optimism, but the thing is that everything on the surface is good. There's just one thing: this shadow lingering under my skin that I can't pinpoint. I'm hoping that by repeated analysis, I can fish it out, skin it, look at it under the light of day. Figure out how it got here--how I got here.

My first instinct right now is to scream. I can hear it in my head and it sounds really good. But I can't. Well, I mean, I could but I don't want to alarm anyone in the house and besides, I don't think I could do justice to the one in my head. Writing it down here is as far as I can go with it right now. It's as far as I've gotten for any of this mess.

I hope this doesn't turn into a crutch.