Fine.

How are you? oh i'm fine. That is how I have found myself answering this question too often of late. Its funny because I am normally the first one to jump on the "I'm great" bandwagon and not think twice about it. But here I am. I'm fine. But thats about it. And the more I think about it the more disturbed I am with my status. I've felt a lot better in a lot worse of situations. So why now? why just fine now?

It's been really hard for me to figure this out but I think I finally have it. I get a call from a friend I haven't spoken to in a really long time yesterday. I see his name pop up on my cell phone and I immediately think "oh crap. what happened?" As if there has to be some sort of tragedy for him to need to call me up out of the blue like that. Turns out he just wanted to say hi and catch up. Why is it that my mind immediately went to something bad happening? I think I know why now. I think I'm waiting for something bad to happen. Anticipating it almost.

I am not naive. I know the world is not all rainbows and bunnies and smiley faces. I know how to roll with the punches and I think that is why I have been for the most part a generally happy person. Which is why I find this predicament odd: at a time in my life where I feel everything (with the exception of maybe one or two minor things) is going exactly as I want it to and I am where I need to be doing what I need to be doing and succeeding, I feel worse than I normally do. Sounds odd no? Things go well and my mood gets worse. Huh.....

Well sometime between yesterday and right now it hit me. I am waiting for something to go wrong. Waiting for someone to get in my way and say no, that I can't have what I am working towards and I can't have what I want and that I have to start over. No passing go, no collecting 200 dollars. And if I think about it even more, then I see that the person telling myself this is ME. Sure, I can sit here in fear of something going wrong, not allowing myself to fully enjoy the fact that I am exactly who I want to be right now, or I can let go of the fear that something will go wrong. I will do everything in my power to make sure that things here stay as I want them to and the rest I have no control over so why bother? Starting now I am ensuring that as hard as I have studied and worked to get to be the person I am, I have time to go enjoy being this person. I want to go do things--see shows, dance more, sing more, hang out with friends more--not just on weekends. I always had the mentality that school was where you study so that when you grow up you can live a good life. But that would make school 20 some odd years of wasted life time. So I am making a pact with myself. Live more. Live harder (but keep up the studying....I still have goals to achieve). Just my thoughts.

Radhi