Late night FOMO vibes - with identities shielded to protect the innocent:
This might be one in a series... Let’s talk about “having a full life.”
Recently someone I know (person A) referred to another person in our lives (person B ) surreptitiously as “having no life because all he does is work.”
Person B is young and surely more independent than yours truly. He’s single, childless, and seems to have a career in something he’s deeply interested in.
When I look at him, I would see those things first, and I admire them. I’m not sure why anyone would think that doesn’t constitutes “having a life.”
I’m unnerved because I wonder if Person A looks at me the same way...
I work a lot. Read a lot. Play and write on the internet. Take classes when I can. Boop my cat on the nose... THIS is my life.
Do I lack some things? Have unfulfilled dreams? Do I regularly careen into debilitating depression? Yes, I just checked all of the above. But I “have a life to finish up here*” and there is no room for self OR outsider pity.
Social media is a funhouse mirror at best, a blow-up inflatable dinosaur costume at worst. I mean that in the sense that the disguise completely obscures what’s underneath in the most ridiculous way possible.
I guess it boils down to my argument:
You don’t have to have 8,000 interests going simultaneously to have a full life. Having just one is fine.
You don’t have to be backpacking around Europe. Or sleeping with strangers. Or have a baby on each hip.
You don’t have to be well-read or well educated. Those things don’t fill everyone’s cup.
You don’t have to have a romantic partner. You don’t even have to go to parties. People can be a drain. I get that.
Sometimes life is better because of what you have avoided... like having kids with the wrong partner, or an expensive degree in a career field you ended up hating.
Is person B happy at their core? Or is person A? I have no idea.
Am I??? Sometimes. I’m a lot of things. I’m not a muppet. Neither are you.
Yes, I have a life.
A heartbeat with an expiration date tells me so.
That heart has been broken, nursed back to health, broken again. It’s been filled with love. And resentment. Even rage.
(But love usually clears it out.)
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My heart IS my life. There’s no separation. Pretending cheats that heart, and so does keeping up with that damn Jones family.
I’d argue it’s the same for many, even though we try to mask it with “the paper stuff.” And heart do need some paper/shields to exist in the world.
Rock, paper, scissors... heart. Rock is home base. Paper is the identities that one with achievement. Scissors are self destructive compulsions that tear up paper.
But heart beats paper and everything else. Because if your heart is loving, even when smashed or cut up, it bleeds over all of the above, even into home base.
Shhhh. Pretend that made sense.
❤️
*thats a Sylvia Plath quote. Credit where credit is due.
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