Memories and Goals

For me, sometimes I am ever looking into the past, analyzing every detail, processing it, and turning it into an action that propels me forward. At the same time, I am always looking into the future, anticipating all the pit falls, planning my moves, and driving toward a goal that I have deemed as "success".

Sometimes, many times, I just miss the here and now.

Yet, what can someone do? In high school, I have always been known to live for the now, and live to no regrets. In college, I looked into the future, I stumbled, and now I study the past. I do not understand all the choices that I want to make. I do not even have the time to process all the information at this second before another second sneaks up on me and I have be clairvoyant enough to decide instinctively.

There is a part of me which wants to move forward. I wish desperately to reach the goals that I had always envisioned. Yet, I at the same time, I feel as I reach and grasp for the future, I am trading away my here and now. My friend groups have become smaller. My intimacy with people have fallen to the wayside. My memories that I make with the experiences I have now have started to blur together into just long moments of study, analysis, planning and doing. A part of me feels like I am growing up and reaching for something higher, and a part of me feels like I am losing myself and dying.

I do not know what I wish to save. I do not know what I wish to relinquish. Time feels so short. I feel it pressing upon me. Some of my friends have managed so well. I do not understand it. They have boyfriends, supportive friends, and a safe path to walk. One of my friends have already managed to secure the next four years of her future; another two chases vigilantly the fleeting dream of being published.

What have I done?

The friends I feel that I can count on have diminished from their vast number to only a handful. And even then, it feels like I have to try with all my might to hold on to them. I am too rooted in fear to feel like I can push for publishing, and out of that very same fear says the words "and even if I do, even if I do... can I sustain my future with mere words and dreams? Will I be able to eat my fantasies and philosophies?" I do not know. I do not know.

Perhaps, for this reason, I have turned to religeon to keep me afloat. Perhaps, the vision of a benign God watching with all His mercy and benevolence, His infallible love and patience wrapping around me and guiding me. Depending on him does not require work, but mere belief. He is someone I can always trust. He would not hurt me, play mind mind games, and I do not have to invest anything but my soul and my faith.

Yet, on a much more human note, what have I done? Really, what have I actually ever accomplished? My only steadfast goal that I had ever held on to - to be ever loving and supportive to my friends, for if I can make at least one persons life better, I have redeemed myself a little - seem so dull, irrelevant. When all have been said and done, there will be no rewards for me. I will not get a better job. I will not be recognized.

I have to try hard on every aspect of my life. On friendships, on relationships, in work, at school, in play and everything. I have been stressed and pulled. I have been crushed and pieced back together. I have given past the limit of what I can give. And, in the end, I am tired.

I stare at the roads constantly before me. No road signs point the way. No leader to tell me my options. Not even a voice to tell me they're right there with me. It annoys me. My old friends have zoomed ahead, almost out of sight. And whilst I have new friends and new ideas, I cannot help but compare what I had with what I have now.

They say the value of a person is measured by the company he keeps. On most days, in most times, my shadow and the waining phases of the moon are my company. I have friends who know how to study, but are not mindful of the ever shifting tides of their surroundings. I have friends who know how to love, but do not understand the giving or the taking. I have friends who know how to entertain, but cannot face the seriousness of reality. In many respects they cannot compare with the groups of people I had held company with. And yet, I love everyone of these people. I will defend each and every one of them to the end. I will forever protect them with what I have, and never regret it. What does this mean?

I do not understand my motivations. I have been called foolish, romantic, idealistic and at worst, failure, by those old friends who have zoomed ahead and not given a second thought of looking back. I do not understand. Friendship is so mercurial, and despite all that I have done to solidify its definition to me, I find myself being torn apart.

Only a few things remain constant to me. I will love my friends. I will love my God.

Somehow, with these principles, somehow with all the contradictions, somehow with a road riddled with sacrifices and compromise, I will find a road that lets me be successful in the future and retain memories, friendships, principles and individuality that I have now.

This is the only way of living I know; this is the only path I can follow. This is my way.