Sunshine

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
Each prayer accepted, each wish resigned.
~Alexander Pope

Backstory: yesterday I had a minor nervous breakdown. Nothing horrible, just one of those moments where I absolutely start to panic and freak out that I'm not doing anything good or important with my life, that I'm never going to figure out what it is that I'm supposed to be doing, and that I'll ultimately end up alone, poor, and living in a duplex with a subscription to Reader's Digest and stray cats. I don't want to be someone who freezes out of fear that they'll fail. Or someone who just settles. I'm fine now. I was talked down by a very smart person, and spent the rest of the evening snuggled in bed reading The Kite Runner. Good book.

Anyway, that, as I mentioned, is the backstory for what I want to say. The actual story, is it would happen, is much more related to the idea of being someone who is so ultraconscious of everything versus being someone who is blithely unaware of anything. I do consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person, and because of that I sometimes wonder if I just think harder or think more than people who perhaps have gifts that lie elsewhere. On one hand, I do really tend to worry about things a lot, I spend a lot of time going over and over things in my head...and I might find myself less stressed out and more content if I didn't think so much about things. But honestly, I think the people who don't think are in fact the ones that tend to settle. The ones who accept life as it's handed to them instead of working to learn new things, try new opportunities, meet new people, etc.

So I think that, above anything else, makes me feel ok about having semi nervous breakdowns now and then. They really aren't fun, they make me all sorts of upset...but at the same time, they remind me that I'm still thinking, still looking to see what all I can get out of life, and not someone who will ever accept a life that's anything less than blissful.