rethinking the thinking

so last night was a rather interesting evening. i had dinner with a group of my friends from my org in college, and while i will not expound on the juicier tidbits of the evening whilst we sipped on our cocktails, at the close of it deng asked us all what our resolutions are for 2009, and all i could think of for me was "to try not to think too much."

I do think i have this habit of overthinking things, so much so that after every pondering that I do, I am no longer sure of how spontaneous I can be (if I am ever), because every thought, every thing has been so premeditated and run through inside of my head. I already have a response to every possible outcome/reaction/externality (that I can conceive of in my brain, and believe me, I conceive a lot). This is why I am an insomniac I think, and why I have taken to white noise to help me get some much-needed sleep at night.

This overthinking is my main barrier to doing things by feeling, and is why I always am at a quandary as to how I am supposed to think, act or feel. I always am thinking about what is the right thing to do, or what do people expect of me? Today I read this from somewhere and it just struck a chord inside, because it makes a lot of sense.

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

Indeed. I have been building walls around my heart since the first (and only?) time I fell in love. I suppose it started because falling short of the expectations of someone you love hurts so damned much. To me, more than anything, though he (whom I loved) never really asked me to change, the most important thing was to anticipate what he needed, and become exactly that. Obviously, we didn't end up together - he needed someone far more real than the caricature of his perfect girl that I had become, but I don't think I have fully recovered. There are pieces of my old self that I don't even remember, save for a few stories now and then by old friends who would tell me of how funnily brazen I was. I don't remember that girl, but I want to.

And so 2009 begins, for me with this mission to break the walls that I myself created around my heart. Perhaps to pull out the knives stuck in there from loving him and others that came after him that prevent me from healing completely.

One knife for the one whom I loved the most, and who finally found what he was looking for. I can see now that she is everything you need.

One knife for the one who came and left. I wish you peace in your world, and a great conversation for us in the future.

One knife for the one who almost was. Here's to a beautiful friendship.

One knife for the one whom I loved parts of. Persephone was never supposed to love Narcissus. We both need to do our own healing, I suppose.

One knife which I myself put in. To remind myself of how painful it is. This is probably the hardest one to pull out.

So for this year, I resolve to think less, do more (except when the thinking really really matters, of course).