Lostness

Lately, I've been feeling a bit lost. I've felt this way at different points in my life, but not for the past couple years. It's a bit hard to describe, but it's sort of this "who am I and who am I becoming" type feeling. I don't like it when people obsess about not knowing who they are. I think Mom sort of instilled that in us - that we don't wait around "discovering ourselves." We go out and do whatever work we see at the present moment and in time, we'll figure the rest out. But sometimes "the rest" doesn't seem so clear.

I think part of it has to do with the fact that I feel like I don't really have strong preferences for a lot of things. Wug, I think you'll probably understand this better than Tut. There are definitely things that I like, but if I'm with other people who have strong preferences, I'll usually defer to them. I think part of it has to do with my people pleasing tendencies. I want everyone to like what we're doing or eating or reading...and I know that even if I like it, if the other person(s) don't like it, then that will erode my enjoyment. So instead, I do what they want to do even though that might not be my natural first tendency if I were alone. And most of the time, it doesn't bother me. Like when I'm with Eun and Steve and Scott watching movies, usually Eun will pick out the movie. And sometimes I don't like it - I get scared a lot more easily than they do - but I'll watch it and I'll enjoy just being with them. And if I'm lucky, sometimes I'll find a new favorite thing in the process. But sometimes, it bothers me that I'm always letting other people run the show. And when it does, that's when I want to be alone or be with people who like all the same things that I do.

I used to tell Michelle that I felt like I didn't have a very strong personality, but I was always attracted to friends who did. People like Michelle or Elisa or Juliet... But I never wanted to be just the "nice" person. Michelle always said that she thought I did have a personality - a personality that adapted to other people a lot, but a personality nonetheless - and she said that she knew that I was super stubborn underneath. But I don't think my stubbornness comes out a lot with my friends. Or maybe I'm no longer as stubborn as I used to be. When I was younger, I used to dig in my heels a lot and I felt like it created friction in the family and in the end, I wasn't happy about making everyone miserable. Even if I pretended to be happy that I had gotten my own way. So maybe I'm overcompensating for that with my friends?