Soulsearching..yet again..

A little bit of philosophy.. I'm not too sure if that's the right word.. But it might get a little "floaty" so skip this if you're in a hurry.. ;)

Like the Friday afternoon 2 weeks ago, last Friday afternoon, I was being extremely reflective and it again made me realize things. I lay there thinking about how I've been doing things for years and where it has lead me to now. I was suddenly answering questions that I have been asking myself for years. It all suddenly made so much sense.

The biggest question I answered was, Why did I choose to travel the way I have been doing? I've always wondered this, and at the same time I wondered why my life is so different from that of all my friends. We all started out the "same". The same education when we were 16, the same parties, drinking and experimenting.. and now I'm the only one who hasn't "built-up" stability. I suddenly saw what it is.. I choose to study tourism and to travel. I did this, and stuck to it. I once said that it's all I want from life and I made it all happen. I went traveling and whenever I wasn't traveling I wasn't a happy chappy. I kept on going, wanting constantly more and more. Why? Because I once said that I was all for Tourism, that was my thing, nothing else would ever make me happy. I felt that if I were to suddenly change my mind and choose a different line of work, I'd be a failure and I would seem "floaty".. "a time-waster".. "scattered".. I wouldn't seem in control of my life and it would be as though I didn't know what I wanted from life.. I wanted to prove that this was who I was supposed to be and I didn't want to fail.

I can now see how I was trying to prove myself by living like this. I wasn't trying to run away from anything (like some people might have thought). But I was doing what was expected of me.. That's exactly the reason why I decided to stay in Holland, when I returned from Australia a year ago. People told me that I would have to settle down.. "you're 24 now..it's about time".. "it's not reality Niamh, you need to live a "normal" life".. "you can't go on traveling forever..sooner of later normality has to kick in".. So, I thought, if I go on traveling, I will be living in a dream world. It's not real life. And I would look at all my mates and see what they had built-up over the years, and then I would look at my life.. No place to live, no man, no steady job, no savings in the bank, no driving license..the list is endless..I didn't have any of these and wasn't it about time that I started? Yes, I thought it was about time..

But that, what I've just described, isn't "normality" to me. Everybody has a different opinion as to what is "normal"... And all the things my mates have, to me, isn't normal. Those things could seem like my "dream world. I soon realized this, once I had started to settle back down in Holland, after Australia.
I can see that being mainstream, isn't what I want. I don't want to do things, just because it's expected of me. Why should I?
I might be reading too much into this next "realization".. but maybe by doing "what society expected me to" I started to loose control over my life. Daily life can be controlled so easily by society. You don't live your life, but life lives you.. I wasn't doing what I wanted and maybe that's why I started to take more control back through certain eating habits..
This might be really far-fetched and I didn't realize this yesterday when I was with Diann..or else I would have cleared it with her.. But it might have contributed..

But everything made so much sense, and everything seems to be "linked" together. Even the way I was 7 years ago, when I was seeing Bart (nearly everyone remembers him, the guy I was seeing for over 2 years). For the whole entire time we were together, I asked myself "What is he doing with me?".. He could have had any girl he wanted, but he choose me.. Of course, with me having an attitude like that, it was never going to last and he broke it off.. Friday afternoon I started to thinkt.. If you don't love yourself..How can you let someone else love you? If you're not happy in your own skin and don't see why this person loves you, then you must think there's something wrong with the other person for having these feelings towards you..? Hummm... I'm not too sure.. But that's exactly how I felt for 2 years anyhow.
I related this to how I feel now, and what I want to do over the next years.. And I realized that if I was to keep up this "self-loathing" and keep on acting out this "lack of self-worth".. then how on earth am I ever going to do what I want in life, and feel fulfilled...
I want to touch people's lives, I want to influence them. I want to make other people happy..for example..working in an orphanage in South America (something I've wanted for years) If I don't feel worthy as a person then what have I got to give? I'd be doing this work for the wrong reasons.. I'd only be doing it to prove something to myself. I'd only feel like I'm a good person by achieving this dream.. I'd be trying to make myself feel better about ME by making others feel happy. But if I can feel happy and fulfilled without proving myself and achieving things, then I'll have so much more to give, and I won't be doing it for the selfish reason of just trying to make myself feel better and feel worthy. It's a little tricky for me get my head around..
Then Diann said: It's like a well (the well being me, and the water being my soul).. If the well is full you don't need achievements to fill it.. you'll be giving from the well and it will more or less always be full... If I were to do certain things for the wrong reasons and to prove myself and achieve as much as possible, I would be doing these things for the rest of my life, I would never feel fulfilled or satisfied because it's a bottomless pit. I'll never be able to achieve enough to make myself feel worthy..it will keep on going.. This can all related to Anna.. "a bottomless pit".. it's never enough, she'll keep on going to make you more and more ill..she's never satisfied..
It suddenly all seemed so clear. So normal really. So logical that it kind of scared me. It's like a puzzle slowly coming together..

It was still Friday afternoon and I was still lying in my bed.. Shocked by the clouds that had cleared. All this going on in my head, and I felt so big on the inside. I felt like I was expanding.. It was so weird.. and then I got up and looked in the mirror and got a shock at the sight of me looking so small, but feeling so big at the same time.. It was a weird but a liberating feeling.. Hard to put into words. I also thought how I must look to people who come by the house now and then.. They must think that I'm so miserable, bored, sad and depressed because of how my life is at the moment. But if they could only see inside. I'm not a boring person at all, there's so much going on inside and it will eventually come out. At the moment I'm not capable of expressing it all (only when I'm with Diann, and writing these posts), but it's in there and bursting to get out.

I was still lying in bed on Friday afternoon.. and I could relate to something Diann said weeks ago. When you feel down or sad, it doesn't mean that it's you as a person. Yes, you own the emotion, but it isn't your identity. When you feel down, you still know that you can feel happy or content.. It's possible to be able "hold 2 emotions" at the same time. And I felt it on Friday afternoon. It was sad, teary and down, as lay there thinking about so much, but at the same time I was fine with it all. I didn't mind that I was down. Because I knew that I was a content person, where I was. This just proves to me that happiness DOES come from within. It wouldn't matter where in the world I would go, it wouldn't make me happy if I'm not happy with being me. Being in Arklow, isn't where I want to be, but I was still feeling fine with it.. At that moment it didn't really matter that I was in Ireland, that I wasn't living the life I wanted and that I was feeling so scared at all these things that are happening, because I was content and pretty pleased to be me. So I don't have to travel the world to be happy or to feel alive.. Because Friday afternoon I felt so much life inside of me, it's just waiting to be let out.

More questions were answered like "Why don't I care that I'm not in relationship?".. So many people would worry about it.. But I'm 25 and single and nearly all my friends are in steady relationships.. But it's never even been something I've worried about. It's probably about the only thing that I wouldn't analyze.. No, I'd just analyze why I'm not bothered to have one.. Everyone knows what all the novels, the cliche's and the movies say.. "find your other half and someone who completes you"..
But it's not for me, sorry.. I'm already complete without being in a relationship. I'm not missing a half thank you very much.
Diann had something more to add..to the answer I had found for myself.. She said something about the TRUE meaning of the word Virgin. It means: Woman on it's own. So a woman who lives her life, just for her. Not anybody else. She owns the rules, she makes her own decisions and decides what's right for herself. A relationship will only ADD to her life, but with or without it, she'll always be complete. How great is that? I thought that was so.. I don't know.. True? Yeah.. I like it.

When I was with Diann this week, I told her all this.. Diann listened... It was all very "tranquil"..(must be those Chinese herbs I'm taking from Mr. Acupuncturist..haha) She said that it's such a gift to experience all this at such a young age. I will benefit from this for the rest of my life.. I know she's right and soon I'll take it on board..Not just yet, I have to leave all this alone for now or else it will become too overwhelming and I don't want to scare it away..