between.lives

By the age of ten, we seem to really get a grasp of what's right and wrong. Of course, our parents attempt to teach us when we're toddlers: "Don't take the toy from him! That's not nice!", "Pee-pee in the toilet, honey", and well, we get it then, we do. And then, just about a year later, we test our boundaries... to find how exactly how wrong the wrong is, and how good the right is. We grow up and by about ten, we get it. We're not going to smoke, drink, or do drugs. We're waiting until we're married to have sex. And speaking of marriage, we can't wait to find "the one" and he will surely be Brad Pitt, or Will Smith, or something of the like. And divorce is out of the question. At ten, money does not buy happiness, and of course we believe in God, who doesn't? We're going to go to college and be something like a doctor or a business man, we're going to start our careers before we start our families. We have it all figured out.

And then we backtrack.
We decide to test our boundaries again. We think about smoking, drinking, and drugs. We crave for sex. We decide we want to be artists and debate the idea of college. We start to lose our religious faith and see where it gets us. We still know that everything we're doing isn't right, but we want to rebel. We have to try it anyway.

And then college hits, and we're toddlers again. Trying to figure out all over again what is right and what is wrong. We wonder like two-year-olds... well, WHY should we believe in God anyway? Why not drink, have sex, do drugs, smoke? You may have a baby before marriage, before your career and you wonder, what's up with the whole "normal" structure of life anyway?

And then, as sudden as a car crash, we're adults. Full-fledged, bill-paying, family-starting, working adults and we realize that nothing, nothing played out exactly as we had planned. We wake up one day and realize that we don't know who we are anymore. A sudden state of confusion: between loves, between careers, between homes, between cars, between religions, between ideals, between lives.

We're lost. Writings my way to try to clear the dust from the storm.