My newfound realization of life

When I was a child, I often imagined my future worked out for me like many others did at my age. I’d get married, own a house and have the time of my life. But as I grew older those thoughts changed.

I realized that maybe I didn’t want to get married or even live in a house. For the past year, I’ve been visiting my grandfather in a rehabilitation center with my father. My grandfather has doing bad recently and it wasn’t a long time ago when he could still remember my name.

The first time I went, I remember tears being brought to my eyes. For the rest of the year I remember my tears being for not just him but many of the other people there who live in pain. Some scream constantly begging for death and others make conversation with strangers to pass the time.

It got me thinking lately, what do I really look for in my life? I don’t have motivation to strive for my best in academics and I’m content with the amount of friends I already have. I don’t particularly want to travel or have a high paying job. I like a minimum amount of things such as drawing or reading but not big enough to inspire me to do more with it.

But I don’t want to live in regret. I want to do much more. Yet, I find myself thinking to a bleak future working just to pay the bills and occasionally go out with my close friends which will decrease over the years.

I don’t find that bad either. It’s just that there might be more to life. I’m still young and have a lot to look forward to, but when the time comes I’ll look back and realize that I’ve been stressing every day during the times of my life when I shouldn’t have.

Ignoring the pressure from my family to go to a good college and so basically everything I don’t want to, it’s as if I put myself down further than that. I compare myself to others with my same interests and realize this isn’t for me. I’ll be uncertain of current thoughts that change quickly due to my indecisiveness.

I used to think that life wasn’t really worth living until I found someone to live for, but that’s not true. I want to learn to be happy with myself. I want to be able to go to a movie theater or out to eat alone without having someone think I’ve been stood up. I want to enjoy just my company sometimes and get to know myself.

As weird as it sounds, I don’t really know much about myself. I don’t know my favorite color or food. I fall back on what other people like and pass off their personality traits for myself. I don’t want to fall in a deep pit of self-pity because there’s so much more to love in the world.

I want my life to end naturally with me loving myself and accepting it all. Something I feel like a lot of people in that rehab center haven’t been able to do. Some have talked to me before, not to me particularly but just needing a person to pay attention to what they say due to no one visiting them for a long time.

I listen although I can’t understand their slurs or language. I realize a lot of them are sad or angry whether it’s at someone or themselves. I notice the same might happen to my parents or people I truly love and care for. But it’s hard to watch that.

No one is immortal and it’s hard having to come to terms with that. But eventually that’s my end goal.