It's amazing how pervasive an influence certain environments can have on your behavior and personality. Living at home after 5 years away has thrown me. I don't know if I associate being home with being on vacation, of not having responsibility or needing to go anywhere, but suddenly I have no willpower. I resolve to do certain things, and then I sit around and watch TV instead. It's hard to suddenly fit myself to another's schedule, especially when we eat dinner, when the car is available... And so often I will make other plans, only to find that I need to fit them around this other timetable, and by then I have lost my inspiration for performing that activity. (It's worse in the winter, because once it gets dark I feel like the day is over and there's no more time to go out and do things).
Somehow it was so much easier to plan my day and coordinate schedules with my friends at college. Maybe because we were much more flexible? Or because I had more agency in shaping my day there. Or maybe this house, these people around me, automatically put me in the passive mindset I grew up in. I couldn't drive, and my mother was strict, so I hardly ever made plans to go out and do things. I didn't have that many things to do around the house either, so I sort of have this expectation to be taken care of. It's also that this house is so small; I don't have that many spaces to go be in that are private and conducive to all the things I would like to do.
I'd like to go out and be productive. I'd like to have a somewhat normal social life. (Not that my preferences for how I like to be social are that...normal, by anyone's standards. But it's not like I'm a D&D freak or anything.) But until my one other friend in this area comes home from college, it's proving to be a difficult thing.
Tattoo Barbie!
16 years ago
1 comment:
You know, I think I have an issue with being busy. Maybe not just busy, maybe I mean swamped. To the point where all other things are kind of swept away by it. I've been realizing (with Dilexi and now my applications), that in some way I am more comfortable being swamped. I can say: this takes all my time and energy, my life right now is this, and I don't really have to deal with anything else. So, if I don't call somebody back, or I don't follow through on XYZ, or I don't do the laundry or whatever, it's ok, because everything is kind of sacrificed to the almighty this. And I feel better about myself because I have a purpose, something to give myself over to... even if I dislike that something and I don't feel happy about doing it. But when I don't have a "purpose," I feel at a loss, and I actually become more lethargic/restless (a strange yet I think common combination) and less productive. I think this actually has something to do with not feeling comfortable with/accepting of myself outside of my deeds... like, I have to prove that I'm worthwhile by the activities I engage in and the things I achieve and how committed I am, but without that external something to commit to, I feel a bit lost. Not sure that this all relates to what you're saying about home... but it's what came up when I read what you said, so in some way it must, right?
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