just before i went to bed that particular question came to mind. i awoke this morning with a heaviness of heart from the recognition that the answer right now is "not much." outside of the walls of work i have little of significance in my life. i have a few hobbies, from which currently i'm not deriving much pleasure. i have no relationships in my immediate sphere -- no family, no friends, no lover, nothing.
each day, i leave the office after my new 12 plus hour a day working schedule (instituted out of a combination of needing the time to adapt to my new enlarged sphere of accountability and the fact that i have nothing (and particularly no one) else to fill the hours). i return to a quiet home, a quiet dinner, and settle in for a painfully quiet evening.
i have stated before that i truly enjoy my job, but i'm not sure that can be enough to provide a full life -- even for me, an admitted work obsessed person (i tend to dream about workplace situations and think about work solutions doing such routine practices as brushing my teeth). yet this situation is the consequence of pursuing a job that i believed would provide me the opportunity to use my talents in service to a meaningful cause -- a job that was located in a place (albeit beautiful with a nice pace of living) where i had never lived and knew no one. furthermore, the situation hasn't been helped by the only recently ended practice of spending the better part of my off-weekends flying back to st. louis to be with a certain ex.
it's funny because i feel my needs (wants) are small. a person to love. a few friends to enjoy. a movie, some dinner out, some snuggling, some physical intimacy beyond snuggling (sigh, it's been a while on those last two). i'm not looking for a massive social calendar filled with activity from sunup to sundown. i'm not looking to jet to paris for the weekend or climb mountains or swim the coral reefs. simple needs for a (fairly) simple person.
i've been told that i need to "put myself out there." where "there" is i'm not exactly clear nor do i know how i need to "put myself out" should i ever find it (despite the suggestive nature that particular word construct seems to pervade when viewing it in black and white).
and with these thoughts about the current state comes the shadow question of "what has my life been?" looking from the recent past and backward, i question what difference it has made that i've been on this planet and what difference would it make if ceased to be. this is not the first time i've pondered these questions. i doubt it will be the last particularly since i'm not really sure i've ever gotten a satisfactory answer.
the irony of this whole particular line of thought is i share a part of my name with a certain fictional angel who plays a pivotal part in a popular movie which has this same line of questioning about purpose, meaning, and the difference one man has made in the lives of others at the center of its plot. so with an inversion of that same movie's character relationships, maybe i need an angel named "george" to come visit me. i certainly need something.
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