On living your own life.

I've been considering the evolution of my life as my own.

When I was a child, like most children, I didn't do very much away from my parents. And even when I was away from my parents, like most children with siblings, I was away from them even less than my parents, because whenever parents are busy, they usually send their children off together to be taken care of by someone else. But back to parents. In the rare moments when you are away from your parents, they still end up knowing a lot about what you do. Because parents ask a lot of questions. They want to know everything that's happening with their child. When you're not in each other's presence for five minutes, then comes the "What were you doing?," and other such invasive, delightfully parental, noseyness.

Then you get a little older, and you start to do a few more things by yourself, away from your parents. And parents start to ask fewer questions. They inquire, "Did you have fun?" You answer, "Yes," and then provide a general outline of everything that happened and why it was that you had fun. After your brief explanation, even though everyone knows more happened than you can possibly recount in five minutes, all involved are satisfied. And even though the people around you know a little bit less about you than they used to, they still know quite a great deal.

I still live with the same people I've lived with my whole life. But there's so much about what I do that they don't know. I'm twenty-two years old. I kinda go out and do my own thing most of the time. And though they're all still around like they were when I first started branching out and doing what I please, I don't talk to them so much anymore. Part of that is my own inclination to be a recluse, and that I can do something about. But more often than not, it's just because I'm so busy. I come home and I want to talk, but I have something else to do. So stories are never shared.

That's the status of my life right now. I am an island unto myself, and while I appreciate having things to do, I often wish I had more time to stop living life long enough to tell someone about it. To tell myself about it even. People don't know me anymore. I don't know me anymore. They, I, know bits and pieces, but only God gets the full picture.