Searching for Myself

I don’t know exactly when it happened. I didn’t feel the change, I didn’t feel any different, any emptier, any sadder. I didn’t feel anything at all. But I do know that somehow somewhere I lost myself. I lost more than myself. I lost my identity, my sense of self, my desires, my dreams. Things changed. Life was no longer about living, but about just going through the motions. It became a routine. It’s not a set routine. Things change throughout from day to day, but it feels like living itself has become a routine. Wake up, live life. Eat, breathe, work, come home, sleep and do it all over again. I can’t lie, sometimes I feel hints of emotion. There are times that I feel alive.

I don’t want to say that I don't feel, because I don’t think I ever lost the ability to feel. That is still there, just different somehow. I know that there is something missing in my life though. There is something that I desire that I just can’t seem to grasp. It’s something that I’m searching for, I just don’t know exactly what it is. I go online desiring something and once I get there I forget what it was I was looking for. I feel like doing something and I get ready to go do whatever it is I desire but when I go to do this thing, I don’t forget, I could never quite figure out what it was to begin with.

I think the change started in high school. I lost the desire to dream…no, not quite. I didn’t lose the desire to dream, I never found the drive to pursue the dreams that I had. Even now, I know that I can do more, I know that I can be better, but I can’t figure out how to get there. As I got older it got worse. High school was, not a bore, but I couldn’t figure out where I was going. And now that I’ve been out of high school for ten years, I feel completely lost.
I want to do more with my life. I don’t know what I want to do though. Actually that’s very wrong. I know exactly what I want to do. I just don’t know how to get there. Nor do I have any faith that I’ll ever be good enough. But being good enough shouldn’t matter should it? Sometimes I wish my life was a fantasy. I wish my life was the life that is found in books.

Anyways, like I said, I know what I want to do. I want to be a writer. But I don’t want to just be a journalist or a blogger. I want to be a novelist. I want to be an author. I want to write books. I want to tell stories and share the emotions of the different people that I feel inside my head. I want to share what I feel the way others have shared with me.

It’s an uncanny feeling to be able to feel what someone else is feeling, and yet its something that I excel at. I am flooded with other people’s emotions. There joy, there hope, their dreams, their pain, their anger, their sadness, I feel all of it almost the same way that they do. I become flooded by these emotions, and yet sometimes I struggle to find my own. Even characters in books, I can feel their emotions as easily as if I was a part of them.

It’s truly amazing to be able to reach people with the written word, and it is something that I desire so much. I want to be able to reach out into people’s minds and convey the feelings that are in my heart, the feelings that are in my mind. To be able to show them that there is hope. There is something worth fighting for. There is something to be found. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

There is a light, and every time I read a book or see a movie or hear a story about someone succeeding, it gives me hope that I too can find the light at the end of that tunnel. Right now I’m going through the motions, but I want to stop that. There comes a time where we have to make a choice. Am I going to be the person that I was meant to be? Or am I going to just be another person who quit chasing their dreams, their goals, and just settled with whatever they had? I know I can do better. I know I can reach my goals if I try. And I know that my greatest weakness, my greatest hindrance, my greatest obstacle is only myself. I have no reason to doubt, no reason to fear, no reason not to try.

I also know this. That-I don’t want to call it a thing-that desire that I’m searching for, I know what it is. I know how to get it. I know where to find it, or should I say Him. That desire is God. That desire is Jesus Christ. He is pulling on my heart, he is pulling on my mind, He is reaching out to me trying to draw me back to Him.

Now it’s up to me to turn and face Him, to turn to Him humbled, to fall on my knees, to fall on my face before him and beg for forgiveness. I know that He is King of Kings, He is Lord of Lords, He is God Almighty. And I know that He has a greater desire for me than I could ever imagine for myself. But I need to submit to Him and His will. It is up to me to turn to Him and let Him guide me. Only He can bring out my true potential.