such boundless pleasure, we've no time for later now

I am a generally happy person. Despite my dying father, being the most competent adult in the household, constantly losing people who are so important to my life, my three and a half year jaunt with my own mortality hanging over me and all the other normal stresses and drama that come along with being a human being, a vast majority of the time I feel happy or even very happy. This happiness is a product of concentrated effort to appreciate all I had, to take exactly what was in front of me and never look back, to content myself with what I had and not spend too much time bemoaning what I couldn't have. Not to say I don't complain; I complain more than anyone I know. Much of what I say doesn't reflect how I feel inside; saying it is what releases my inner resentment at perceived unfairness and stress. 

In many way this is a successful ploy. I am happy. My aim was accomplished. It's been almost a year since I found out I don't have Huntington's. Hm, I should try to find that piece of paper. I wanted to frame it and you'd think me, the ultimate packrat, would have enshrined that thing. Aha, found it. Sometimes, though, I still feel as if I'm living like I'm dying. There's this certain frantic edge to what you do, a grasping hold where you grab onto anything, no matter how tenuous, to feel more. You take what you can get and endeavor to deeply experience everything and regret nothing. 

There's sayings everywhere that encourage one to live as if they were dying, and in a lot of ways it's true. More than once I've decided to do something just for the hell of it, and if sometimes I'm reckless, I'm okay with that. Everything from staying up late to sleeping with someone has resulted from a 'Fuck it' moment directly tied to a desire to live life for everything it has to offer. And I love it almost all the time. I love feeling alive, I love feeling as though I've accomplished something, I love being able to do nothing at all and just by appreciating the moment it's something. 

But at other times, I wonder if appreciating everything has led me to settle for less. I wonder if taking what I can get and accepting it has led me to miss out on things I could have gotten had I pushed for it. For instance, I've met some (two) truly amazing guys. I've had a lot of fun and learned a lot and been changed a lot for the better by them. But I have never been told 'I love you' (well, my freshman-year-in-high-school-'boyfriend' might have, but it doesn't count). I have never had a serious boyfriend, never been in a serious relationship-relationship with the titles and number 2 on speed dial thing. I've never celebrated anniversaries or been introduced as 'my girlfriend'. I'm just 19 and a half, I guess it's not that unusual, but considering how I've had serious physical relationships (notice the plural) and they have come with emotional connections, it makes me wonder.

On one hand my recklessness pushes me towards taking what I can get- the more than friends but less than dating relationships I constantly get myself into. They care about me and I care about them; we both have fun; who needs to hear I love you, anyway? On the other hand, I wonder if this is what's preventing me from being in the stable kind of relationship I really want. I don't think it's that I'm not datable. I just think that I get in situations where dating is not an option. 

Then again, maybe a stable relationship is what I want but not what I need. Maybe that one more fucking person leaving me would be what pushes me over the edge into cynicism and general hatred of mankind. Maybe this way I get almost everything I want without as much of the danger of the rest. I don't know. See, this is the rationalization that goes on in my head that makes me happy. Or helps keep my happiness intact. It's probably a bad time to be dating anyway; after a certain period of time I have to leave the person or they have to leave me because I live in different places. 

Oh, who really cares. I'm living fast and sometimes I worry I'll crash, but when it comes down to it I'm not going to change how I'm living very much. I have plans for the future but none for tomorrow and that's exactly how I like it. I live spontaneously and planned, laid back and frantic and while it makes life crazy I can't imagine it any other way. While sometimes I worry- will I find someone who actually wants to say I love you to me and does say it, someone who wants to spend the rest of their life with me who I want to spend the rest of my life with- I'm only 19 and a half. I have plenty of time to worry about that in 5 years.

It will all work out. I do live slightly less frantically than I did. The other day someone told me 'You've been dying since you were born' and I didn't even connect it with the morbid thoughts I'd usually get until today. I see mothers with children and it doesn't make me sad. I'm getting used to the idea that my death doesn't have to hang over everything I do. I'm just like any other person my age, I'm normal. 

You know, I should probably stop bashing on myself as much. I'm going to be me for a long, long time (barring any unforeseen circumstances just like anyone else). I'm going to be me!

And since that concept made me so happy and continues to make me so happy, I should be less hard on myself. Even though I have my faults (like the fact I continuously talk about myself, geez, talk about boring) I have all this time now. So many possibilities and so many opportunities. The world is so much bigger and even though it's uglier than I can comprehend, it's larger and more beautiful than I can imagine. And as long as I remember that, because I can remember that, I'll be happy.

Screw worrying. There are bad sides to every choice I've ever made and there are undoubtedly consequences to my contradictory approach to life- but I've already decided it was more than worth the risk. It will all work out in the end.

And there is someone out there for me, and if he can't put up with my intensity or if he misses out on me because of the way I live, then he's not the one for me, is he now.