It's been a while, blog-o-sphere. I've been too busy to have time to myself to think and write. Or...when I had time to myself, I used it for other things, like sleeping, or reading, or playing (yes, 22year olds still play).
But, now that it's
summer, and I have long, solitary hours in the lab to think, I haven't been
able to stop.
Weird thing about
active imaginations is they never really shut up. It can be handy, if
you're bored, but if you're introspective, it borders on the dangerous.
If you spend too much time thinking about yourself, you start doubting
everything you are, everything you've done, everything you could do, everything
you want.
Once you spend a
few weeks doing that--and believe me, I have--you start to wonder, who am I,
exactly? Sounds pretty weird coming from a confident person (or at least
a mostly-confident person). Sounds pretty weird coming from a person
who's known at least an outline of what her career would be since she was 6. Sounds
pretty weird, and totally conceivable, to me.
Doubt is a funny
thing: when people confront you about it, you never have it, but when you're
alone, when you ask yourself...you will always have Doubt. But once you
admit to yourself that you have it, it doesn't begin to lighten, to back off,
it just gets heavier and more prevalent. It begins to consume every
thought, particularly when you have extended periods of alone time.
For me it's
particularly present when I return to my hometown. It's a small enough
town that there are memories on pretty much every route to every location;
memories that are good, bad, or a little of both. These memories plague
my thoughts as I cruise around, taunting me with past decisions, some still
tantalizing, some discouraging, some merely nostalgic. It makes for a
very interesting internal dialogue, with too many "what-ifs" to
count. These what-ifs are formed by that Doubt that loves to haunt the
recesses of my memories, my inmost thoughts. It's a nasty thing, Doubt,
that shows its face on vacation, on relaxation-time, on alone time (which is
much needed for this closet introvert). This year, it took me breaking
down to my mom for us to realize that it's not just me that goes through this.
Yes, there's nothing new under the sun, no, I'm not special in my brand
of issues, but this particular internal pain of doubting decisions seemed so
strange that I was sure not many felt it. Turns out the apple doesn't
fall far from the tree.
The story gets
better, though, I promise.
We realized some
things, my mom and I--well, she realized them years ago, she led me to these
thoughts during that kitchen-table-breakdown.
There will always
be Doubt. There will always be "what-ifs," that's the fine
print that comes with an independent mind, with a free will. There will
always be one road you didn't take, one choice you didn't choose. That's
the backwards joy that comes with the imaginations we've been given: there is
always more than one option, more than one decision you can make. There
is always more than one voice you can listen to: Doubt, Fear, Pride, Joy,
Hatred, Faith, Lust, Selfishness, Truth,
the list goes on.
You
just have to decide: which voice do you listen to? Which voice will give
you the confidence to respond to Doubt's "what-ifs" with a defiant
"so-what?" I've chosen what I've chosen because of the voices
I've listened to. No, it's not the same voice all the time, yes, my life
would look different if I only chose to listen to only one, yes, there are
things that could have been different...but they're not. They are what
they are, and until we master time travel, Doubt just serves as a painful reminder
that we're human, and faith in ourselves will lead to trouble.
Faith
in the voice that you listen to will dictate your response when that voice of
Doubt whispers softly in your ear.
You
have to choose which voice to listen to. I've chosen, and Doubt won't win
this one, no matter how sweet that whisper is.
