cycle

Is this really what I want to be doing?

I am being dramatic. I think that's how it seems.

I would like to get on with life.

I feel, though, like I am coming apart.

Maybe it's too much to expect happiness from life--maybe I'm just blocking it, keeping it from happening.

I am tired of the ups and downs.

Some of the days are okay, some are not okay, but from the wide angle they all seem like drudgery. Just slogging through another day. And sometimes I can pretend like things count--I can really believe it--and sometimes I just can't. And sometimes I can really look forward to life, and sometimes I just can't. When I am in a good mood later, I will read this, and just think I'm whining (if you're in a good mood, I bet that's what it sounds like). Right now, I don't feel as if anyone could relate to me, but later, I won't even be able to relate to myself.

And I can just ride it out, which is what I do every god damn time, but I know that it will just happen again. I have a few good weeks, then I have a bad week or two, then I have a few good week--and this makes me feel like the good weeks are just the weeks I am delusional, and the bad weeks are when I see things for what they really are.

Here's the thing:
1. For me to be happy, I need to have my life be about something.
2. I don't believe in anything Higher or Ultimate, and so I believe that I have to choose for myself what my life is going to be about.
3. So I choose something (it's usually friends, relationships, sometimes it's work), and this works temporarily, but then I remember that I just arbitrarily chose it, and how can I make my life be about something arbitrary? There are other options! How do I know I'm choosing right?
4. I can no longer make my life about that thing, for a couple of weeks, and I feel empty, directionless, drifting. And then back to 1.

So I am afraid that the only way I will be happy is if I can stop myself from remembering that I just arbitrarily chose what my life will be about (if I can be delusional, basically) OR if I can somehow be okay with the fact that all we can do is choose, and there's no use being disappointed in that, because that's all there is. OR if I can somehow find something that works for me, that I can actually think is ultimate, and I can organize my life around that.

For some reason, I cannot just let this happen. I cannot just stop thinking. I don't think I will ever be able to. So you might want to say "Just get over it!" "Stop thinking about it!" "You think too much and make yourself crazy!" Well, yes, great, but it's not like I can help it, you know? I think this would be hard to understand for someone who hasn't felt this way before--that your thoughts are sort of out of your control. Where nearly every single moment becomes something to analyze, where you see every single moment from an outside perspective, and don't actually live in your own life very often. It's like a constant state of reflection. Sometimes when I am with other people, or singing to music in the car, or drunk, I can drown out the reflection, but this is always only temporary. It makes me tired. It makes me feel like an outsider in my own life. It makes me feel like I can't genuinely connect to anybody--they're not going to understand me and I can't give myself to them because i don't have any self to give. I can become infatuated with people, but I don't know if I can love them. How can you love someone if you're always wondering if your feelings are genuine, or what they mean, or what love is? I'm not so sure I can deeply feel anything (is this why I can't get delighted?) because I instantly distance myself from everything I feel and even when I am acting like I am feeling I am just sort of acting the way I know people are supposed to act when they feel certain ways. Sometimes I just want to sleep so that I can stop thinking.

I hate this. I really do. I do not feel like a real person. I do not know what to do. Am I always going to be like this, 1-2 weeks out of every month? Is there anything I can actually do to fix it?

I feel detached and selfish. I do not want to be who I am right now, if I even knew what that was.