Question Mark?

“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.”
-Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

After my first experience living abroad, the director of my program told me I was self-actualized. It was meant to be a compliment, acknowledging that my time in Barcelona had inspired and enlightened me, conveniently fulfilling the purpose of the program. Though to me it couldn’t have been further from flattery. I hated the idea that I had already become the person I was meant to be. There was way too much seeing to do, too many worlds left unexplored. Spain was the tether that tied me back to the self that I had lost over years of self-consciousness, but there were moments still when I felt more like a kite, floating aimlessly hundreds of feet above ground. If that was fulfillment, it sucked.

Since then, I’ve had this thing about reaching that state of mental nirvana. I prioritized it to the point obsession, convinced out of the irrational fear that without constantly searching for it, I would never actually become "actualized". Friends insisted that I try too hard, that I am running where all I need to do is walk. But I can’t see myself that clearly. My life is punctuated with accomplishments and blessings and good fortune, but I still see myself as an enigma. Some days I feel like a story that has lost sight of the plot, others like a decrepit building without scaffolding. To the query of “why?” I am a question mark.

Introspection is habitual for me, at times to my own detriment. Occasionally I catch myself reliving scenes in my head and replaying the past. These efforts, of course, are practiced in vain. But introspection doesn’t always leave me chasing my own tail. That time devoted to wondering and feeling and excavating myself has guided me through hidden pathways that I would have otherwise passed absentmindedly. And I may have found the source to that unfulfilled, empty feeling that I sometimes get… I’ve figured out that I want more.

Call me gluttonous, call me indulgent, call me spoiled, call me stupid. I’m hungry; I want the world and all its contingencies. I want impasto. I want harmony. I want language. I want a glorious soul and a fearless heart. I want shocking confidence matched with striking humility. I want frustrating honesty with lacing compassion. I want uncharted waters to splash in and unwavering faith for salt.

I’m insatiable. I’m not sorry.