Searching for meaning is exhausting and confusing. Lately, I prefer immersing myself in the superficial. I love to party and drink too much and wake up the next evening to do it all over again. I’d rather find myself contemplating whether I want green or blue or pink to be the dominant color of my eye make-up instead of contemplating how I’m going to make my life matter or even if I can make it matter considering that past serious contemplations have led me to believe that there is no afterlife.
I want to believe that each individual gives meaning to her own life; that there really is no greater meaning, no greater power than our individual minds. Spending an hour or two painting my face should be just as meaningful as eating an incredible piece of chocolate cake with a glass of wine or writing a story or reading a poem written hundreds of years ago. But it’s not. All things are not equal. At the end of the night, when I come home and my drunken buzz transforms to exhaustion and my make-up is smeared and my hair is tangled, I know I will lie in my bed and feel empty.
I guess the truth is that meaning is painful much of the time. Currently, for me, it is more painful than it is anything else. It requires a level of self-reflection my battered heart does not want to deal with now. So, I suffocate it in layers of foundation and shimmering colors and drown in it cheap and not-so-cheap beers, wines, tequilas, rums and vodkas. I drown out the noise of my own suffering with beats from Lil John and focus on shaking it and dropping it down low.
And I try to convince myself that these things are just as meaningful in their own way until I encounter something that destroys that fantasy. “Taking a Minute” by K’naan is so densely packed with emotions that I can find no logic to try to give “In Da Club” by 50 Cent the same credit. David Sedaris does not compare to John Irving, nor does Pride and Prejudice compare to Wuthering Heights.
The need for varying levels of meaning must be an indication that we all get tired. The superficial must require less energy than the genuine. Not even the mystics can remain in a constant state of supposed divine union. (I don’t see how they can really be experiencing a union with a being that in all likelihood does not exist, but to each their own.) But, still, why do I feel the need for meaning? Why do I feel something is missing without it?

Recently, I have had some serious family issues come up. I always have family issues because my family is severely dysfunctional all of the time and downright abusive a lot of the time. During the past month, things have been coming up a lot with them. At some point, I will have to deal with it all but right now, I don’t have the extra energy it will require. In the meantime, it is taking an emotional toll and making my regular every-day activities harder to perform. Therefore, I have had to apologize to quite a few people recently for flaking out on them. When I offer an explanation of the current problems I am trying to deal with, they inevitably try to give me advice on how to deal with the situation.
Frequently, when we give advice, we fail to see the intimate nature of the issue. Additionally, most issues people find themselves dealing with are complex. There are no simple solutions. For example, I am working on a project for a client that is now five days late. I told him I am having family issues and he asked for more details. I told him that my mother is telling lies about me that make me look bad. This is an extremely simplified version of the situation. Yet, he now feels he knows enough to offer me advice. He says I should go to see my mother as soon as possible, let her know how much I love her and everything will be fine again. As if.
It amazes me how everyone tries to offer such simple solutions to me. It also amazes me that they try to tell me it is no big deal and I shouldn’t let it bother me. Well, then, what is a big deal? What should I let bother me?
As I contemplate this, I begin to wonder if it is possible that most people just have not encountered a person as crazy as my mother. Maybe everyone just thinks it’s so simple because they were not raised surrounded by insane people. This is very difficult for me to understand. My upbringing and the key, influential people in my childhood have led me to believe that most of the population is dysfunctional. Before, I assumed that if people were offering simple solutions it was because they were dysfunctional themselves and were uncomfortable confronting dysfunctionality in others. I still think this is probably true in a lot of cases. But I’m also beginning to see that maybe they haven’t ever had a close relationship with a truly crazy person and therefore have absolutely no idea what I’m up against. Shockingly, they may actually think the simple solutions they are offering me will prove successful.
I spent almost every single day of the first nineteen years of my life with my mother. I know crazy very well. It colors my perception of the world. So, I find it hard to believe that dysfunctional people are not the norm. And since I cannot yet discern between dysfunctional people and people who just haven’t experienced crazy, I think I will err on the side of caution and continue to consider everyone dysfunctional, including myself.

Today, I woke up overwhelmed by my own neglect of my responsibilities. I couldn’t decide what the best choice was. Should I stay at home and work from there, using all my energy to on working instead of trying to go somewhere? No, I decided, looking around my apartment. The mess would be to depressing. So, I forced myself into the shower and shaved my legs. I put on jeans instead of sweat pants. I considered make-up but decided finishing everything I need to finish right now would take a long time and it would be best not to have my pores suffocating the whole time.
I packed up my bag and went to my friends’ apartment. Immediately, the stale, smoky air ruled it out as option for a place to work in. I drank some orange juice and a can of V8 and left for campus. As soon as I got Qdoba, I realized I had left my mug at my friends’. I had planned on drinking mug after mug of Good Earth energizing black tea to keep me going. Warily, I ate my burrito, which was unremarkable and disappointing.
Finally, I arrived at the library. My ex signed on to MSN Messenger. Now, I’m sitting here with tears ready to fall. My entire body aches. I couldn’t even force myself to smile right now. Why did I even bother to get out of bed?

It is yet another sunny day in the middle of February in Eugene. The weather reports say it is supposed to stay sunny with temperatures getting into the high 50s until Tuesday, when it will begin to rain again. I love these sunny breaks that happen during the winter. The rain starts to feel like a burden after a few days or a week. The sun seems to make everyone happy. Even though it still feels cold outside, a lot of people dress in shorts and T-shirts. Not me. I’m still wearing two jackets, sweat pants and a scarf. Of course, I am sick and worried that exposure to the cold air will make it worse or last longer.
Sunshine and blue skies do seem to hold a promise; one that says things will not always suck and they will get better. But then the rain returns and the heavy clouds weigh down the sky again and it seems to promise that the good times are never permanent either. Is life always going to be an emotional roller coaster?
I know that it does not have to be. I have many friends whose lives are much more stable than mine. Sometimes I contemplate their everyday routines and what their priorities might be and I ask myself would I be happier living like that? Then I consider the reasons why I am unhappy right now. In both the long term and the short term, the majority of my unhappiness is related to my family. Realizing this, I know that I have three options. I can find a way to become immune to their dysfunctional behavior and beliefs, I can push them out of my life or at least into a smaller corner of it, or I continue in the same pattern of misery with them. The third option is the easiest to accept in the short run, but intolerable over an extended time period. The first option doesn’t seem likely to happen for years to come. The second option has the highest chance of success.
However, I think part of implementing the second option is once again believing in myself and my values and not feeling so vulnerable and doubtful all the time. To be honest, many of the things that happened between June 2007 and March 2009 eroded much of the strength I had built up. Since then, I have had little faith in myself and my abilities. It would have been impossible to try to heal during this time because it seemed that one trauma was immediately followed by the next. I have spent the last year getting used to not constantly navigating my way through one problem just to find myself amid a new one.
Now, I am in a position to feel again. And I am unhappy. As I said, a lot of it is because of family issues but then there are problems I could have avoided. I fell in love with an unavailable man. During the entirety of our relationship, I completely understood how unavailable he was. Yet, I allowed myself to pursue it and get more deeply involved. The more involved I became, the more I lost sight of how unavailable he was. And then it all came crashing to an end I wasn’t ready for. Now, I am stuck with a sadness that I could have prevented or at least lessened by not getting so involved.
I guess, then, I am in the process of figuring out how to become stable without becoming bored. I need a lot of stimulation. But maybe once I begin to allow myself to deal with things instead of avoiding them I will find that I no longer need the same stimulation.