Perspective

I've never really wanted a lot, like in the sense of really yearned for a lot. I remember really wanting my dad to get through his surgery safe and sound. I remember really wanting my mom to always be as happy as she was during the period when I was a newborn to about four years of age. Of course, I also really wanted Joshua Jackson to be my one true love, and I really wanted to own this Hello Kitty pocket mirror and comb set, but those were poignant, short-lived yearnings; I eventually outgrew my crush at 17, after nine years, and Hello Kitty is just so 1989 for the '90s kid in me. The truly serious things in life, I've never really felt a deep yearning for. I've never felt like I needed to get into Harvard, or else. I've never felt like I must have this car, or that house, or those shoes, or any other piece of material possession. In retrospect, my childhood was not a wealthy one, but I had thought so, because I had everything I needed: great spaces to call my own (a reading cave with a contraband reading lamp, a big boulder in the woods of Lawrenceville where I wandered and napped), my own custom-made desk, a computer when I asked for one, an ergonomic chair because my dad was just that worried about my posture, all the money I wanted for books, great food, concern and support from parents...I never learned how to want, because I never felt a need to.

For awhile, I didn't really know how to deal with wanting stuff. When I came across something I wanted, and it was always something I wanted badly, it became my whole world, and failure to get it would have meant devastation. I've really wanted great friendships with some people, and cool sounding gigs, so these things became larger than life. They loomed so ominously over everything else I should have been concentrating on, I put so much weight on them, they ultimately disappointed. I lost perspective, and only after the fact, after everything had fallen, and I've calmed the fuck down, did I realize that wanting stuff so much made me ignorant and shortsighted.

I've learned a lot about perspective from Ian. Every time I dwell and obsess over something I consider out-of-this-world, one-of-a-kind extraordinary, it helps to have him remind me that there are plenty of other things out there just as extraordinary. And he is usually right. All the nerves wracked over wanting something, it's so much to ask of a person. So much energy is expended over worrying and coveting and second guessing; in the end, it feels like an ill-lived life. Ironically, Ian is one of the last things I remember really wanting. Not just his person, but I remember really wanting something great to come out of our time together, and I remember really wanting it be more lasting than just a few months. That was one of the few times when I had enough perspective to realize wanting something like that so much might actually ruin any possibility of a future, and so we just went with the flow, made logical decisions based on our limitations, and waited to see how things would work out.

I have a couple of things I really want right now. I'm working towards accomplishing them, and I've envisioned a future with and without them. It's not so bad in either scenario.