Why do it?

Here's a question. When you decide to do something, anything, why do you decide to do it?

I believe that this is an essential question that we have to ask ourselves in order to maintain a semblance of control on our own lives. If we never ask why then we must be pulled along by influences greater than ourselves.

Why should I have children? Why should I get married? Why should I take this job? Why should I love someone more than another?

The questions are endless. There are a million directions between here and tomorrow and yet life expects you to start somewhere. Anywhere. Sometimes it feels like I'm just moving along day by day without knowing what brought me to this place. I wonder if I asked myself why enough. Or if I did ask myself, did I really want to know the answer...

I don't know if I want to know the whys about myself some days. I feel like I won't like the answers. I realized lately that I've lost all sense of a moral compass. Ever since I stopped believing in Christian faith I stopped connecting to a greater moral order. I honestly never realized how lost I felt, from an ethical standpoint, until recently when I started asking myself "why am I doing X thing?" And I realized that I have lost my belief structure, which has left me floundering, trying to decide what the right decisions are.

Is it easier just to believe in something, a higher power, a religious organization, in order to give your life structure? To answer the why? Or does it mean that you aren't strong enough to make decisions based on your intellect and experience? To base them on what you've personally experienced and can grasp?

I can't go back to what I grew up in, but I need to find something to hold onto. I suppose I will just have to keep asking myself why before I make decisions and hope I decide for the right reasons.

Is this the lamest blog on the internet?

So... I was going back and re-reading some of my old posts...

Yikes! I have to laugh at myself, shake my head, and mutter "emo much" under my breath. Apparently, when I blog, I almost always do it when I'm depressed or frustrated or angry, which means most of my posts sound like some 18-year old wannabe goth poet wrote them. It's terrible!

Though, in the end, I actually do feel better when I can vent my emotional turmoils here. One, if I vent here, I don't have to embarrass myself by sharing my overly dramatic feelings with other people. Two, it helps me work through the various, winding ideas I have floating around in my head by putting them into a (relatively) coherent whole. Three, like number One, I don't have to hold back for fear of being judged or for fear of hurting someone. Four, since this is anonymous, I don't have to worry about my fears getting back to the people about whom I'm worrying or my feelings getting back to the people about whom I'm thinking.

Regardless, though my little blog therapy has been good for me (cathartic one could say); however, now I'm aware of the silliness of the way that I write (no Hemingway-like tales in my future). So, that is why I can't help but wonder if this is the lamest blog on the internet... ;-)

Melancholy

I've been laboring under a cloud of melancholy lately.

I don't know what has brought it on, but I feel this listlessness that is consuming my emotions. I don't feel depressed. No. This is more along the lines of boredom, actually. I feel like I'm searching for a way to evoke strong emotions. As if my emotional state of being needs a jump start. Maybe my battery ran out?

You know what I've been doing? I've been drawn to dark war films, listening to sad music. It's pathetic really. I sat alone and watched Full Metal Jacket and Black Hawk Down back-to-back! So ridiculous... What do I think that I'm going to find there? Some kind of emotional salve for my weary soul? Even those questions are so melodramatic that I can't believe I just typed them.

What's more is that it's most frustrating not knowing quite how to root out the source of this feeling. Why am I feeling this way? I've actually taken on several more responsibilities, ones that I enjoy and find stimulating, at work. I am competing for a special award at work. I've got my very first triathlon (yay me!) this weekend. Really, if anything, I should be feeling energized and excited. But I'm not.

Partly, my romantic life has been impacting me. I know that I've been feeling emotionally lethargic in my marriage lately, and definitely sexually frustrated, so that doesn't help. I want to connect with my husband, but I'm realizing that we have a definite lack of similarity in our emotional complexity. He's just so unable to express himself and oftentimes unwilling to even try that I feel like "what's the point?" I definitely feel myself getting pulled in directions that I shouldn't be, but I can't find an anchor in our relationship to hang onto. I remember feeling so passionate about him the first year we were together, and it's like I'm a different person now. Not him. Me. I feel differently about him even though he really hasn't changed at all.

And yet... Something else is missing. I'm searching for something, but it seems I'm wandering in a shopping complex at Christmas without even knowing for whom I'm buying the gift. And since I have no idea, I wander aimlessly, accomplishing nothing, gaining nothing.

I'm just ready to move on and break out of this melancholy.