Twenty Seven:

I've been in a reflective mood the past few days. It may be my bipolar 2 acting up. It may be that I almost died a few months ago. It may be that I am making some serious life changes in the next few months. It may be the stress over S. It may be financial pressure. Or any of the above combination.

I generally tend to believe that you can't live life full of regrets. That shit will tear you apart. I've done some serious and seriously painful things I should regret. In the very long run, in my deepest self, I don't. They were choices I made consciously, as an adult, with total regard for circumstance, setting, emotion and situation. They were things I tried miserably to fix that were much like that children's rhyme.

"All Cholie's effort and all Cholie's tears couldn't put Humpty together again.".

But I don't look upon any of it as something that I shouldn't have done. I don't even look upon any of it as something that I wouldn't do again, if given the same set of circumstances... Even if, at times, I left little pieces of myself in places that I will never be able to retrieve them. In places or situations or with people in which I will never have closure, even if I reapproached those things in search of them.

So, I find myself wondering, having left little pieces of myself scattered in various corners of other people- How do you ever become a whole person again?

I enrolled in the local community college yesterday, full time, after having been out of school for 12 years. LARGE step. Massive. Habitual procrastinator. (Most of the time, it takes me 20 minutes to get up after I realize I have to pee, because I figure if I wait longer, I will have more time before I have to do it again and get more time on my couch. No judgement, peanuts.)

My best friend and I were having the conversation of what the goal in it was- Because she had enough college credit at various universities in another state to have an Bachelors in Bullshit. (AKA Independent Studies) She said to me, "Because after all that, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.". I laughed, filled with irony. There we sat, two grown women, closer to thirty than 29, both with husbands that we've had in our lives for double digit years who have successful careers, and multiple children (G's much older than her oldest, though.)... And we both had the exact same thought.

When I'm a grown up...

But, can you be a grown up without being a whole person? Will I ever become a whole person again without those pieces of myself that I've left scattered across various parts of the universe? Or does a mental/therapy band-aid count as filling? Will I forever feel like that carnival ride that you KNOW is held together by rubber cement and adhesive strips? Enjoying the ups of life, hating the stomach turning downs, not regretting the things that required the rubber cement and adhesive strips, not wanting to get off, but wondering if I'll ever be enough to feel satisfied with myself?

Because the only thing I want to be right now is a grown up. A whole grown up.