I come from a family of  expectations, of standards and the path well taken. I was born of a different stock. I have the most trouble with trying to balance and settle the two. I love my family. I am inherently nothing like them. They despise a person like Lady Gaga. I see myself in her and found such peace knowing that I was indeed born this way. Their standards and expectations have never really fit me. I got the degrees, I did the work but I lost my passion on that journey. The trouble comes in finding a way to love myself and live my life with my purpose in mind. But I am still adrift, looking for that purpose. I always seem to find the most comforts in the extreme of things. I am adroitly self aware. I have an analytical love of looking at things from all angles, including myself. But this self awareness also comes with an incredible inability to truly know who I am. I sense that there is a door somewhere that if I could open would let me break free. The other side of my coin knows that this is an oversimplification. The truth is I have relied on my family. I have leaned against them when I could not stand. But the truth is also that if they disappeared, they would probably not recognize the person who would appear. I have happily created a box for family and a box for friends and I always live in terror that the two worlds will collide and I will have to make a choice to expose my true heart to a family that would reject it. The love would never cease but the need to "cure" me of my liberal stupidity would make our relationship unbearable. Because I can separate them, I can find a way to survive. This also sets me apart from them. The fact that my friends aren't truly my family separates me from them too. So there is left a place where I am and will be alone. I dream and pray for a man to come and keep me company in that space but I don't see that happening soon. There is little going on for me right now. So I dwell in that place. It is lonely but it is safe. I have to meditate to try and keep it calm. Because I overthink which leads to anxiety which exacerbates depression which makes the place even more lonely which makes me analyze and overthink. The words change but the need, the desire to understand, to change, to be a person looking forward to the future keeps me in a place where rest seems almost impossible. Sometimes I envy those who are rich in this world and poor in their minds. I am desperately sick of being the opposite.