"Everything in Moderation"

I have finally found an hour to sit down and write- (which was no easy feat), but all I come up with are jumbled thoughts…good thoughts, but nonsensical. No conclusions or profound explanations. Nothing of the sort…so much to say but nothing to write.

It’s probably a result of the excessive excess of everything here in Barcelona. The going without stopping- the constant lack of moderation…the gluttonous surplus of all that is good in life. Or in my opinion, all that is good. 

I’ve spent a large portion of my years- at least the years in which I have been writing…trying to make sense of my existence, to define it- and then to put it into words. Right now- to put it bluntly- I don’t have the words. I can’t seem find them.

I had forgotten what it feels like to be so overwhelmed that you stop ticking things off the list and just do them…or do as much of them as you can. My lists have gone out the window, I don’t bother making specific plans because I know I will only make it to an eighth of what I have arranged, and I stopped trying to think about circumstances- and just live them.

Before I left for Barca- the night before- I grabbed the volume of my journals from 1999- and read and re-read the entries from the days before I left to begin my undergraduate degree. From the moment I started scanning the yellowed pages, I immediately realized that I was younger, I was more ignorant, more inexperienced, and more idealistic- but essentially the same person. I went off to university hoping to find a life in DC equipped with everything that I had lacked up until then. I wanted to find those who appreciated and loved me, I wanted to learn, to find my passions, to define my passions, and to live a life where I stopped having to think about being happy….I just wanted to feel it. 

I wanted to find myself. 

There was a point when I thought I could simply discard the flaws that made up who I was and morph into someone I wanted to be but had never been. Talk about innocence… Needless to say, that never happened. I got to GW and I was exactly who I had always been…and I thought about being happy, instead of just being happy. I did things I didn’t necessarily want to do, but because I thought that’s what I should be doing. I was busy- very busy being someone I didn’t want to be, in a place I didn’t want to be in. But it was a part of my life- and it made me who I am now- as did all the other good and bad things I’ve gone through.

Now- since I’m all about drawing parallels lately- I look at the way I have approached this experience, as opposed to how I felt en route to DC…and the similarities are uncanny. Possibly it’s always wanting more- or wanting the best- or wanting the most- but I threw myself into this life here in Spain just as I threw myself into DC. I came here, packed with my flaws and defects- bearing the burden of my mistakes and downfalls- but ready to do it all again….and similarly, I’m overwhelmed- I don’t know where to start and worse, when to end…and even if I figured that out, I don’t think I could stop- would stop. I’m not stopping until it’s over.

I came to Spain, as I went to DC, open to everything new but with my previous life hanging over my shoulder…reminding me of my weaknesses and how not to falter. I have not come to Spain this time around to find myself. I know exactly who I am…for the most part. So this time, I know what I want. I go for it- I get it…and now I have to learn to moderate. 

So finding the time to sit down and write- well, I found a bit of that. Taking the time to stop for a second…to relax, to find the words to define whatever this is- that’s the challenge. To learn the definition of moderation…speaking of flaws.