I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now

Life is weird. Or maybe it's just me. I felt older at 27 than I do at 34. I felt more run down and exhausted. Now, I actually am run down and exhausted (being an essential worked in a pandemic will do that), but I don't feel quite so at the end of my line. I have a better sense of who I am, who I want to be. 

I was out running last night, and I had a moment. One where I realized that I feel like myself again. One of those tiny moments of absolute freedom where I realized that nobody owns me. That the things that weigh me down don't actually matter. Because only I own my mind. 

That's not to say I won't be all over the place again. I will still fall under the weight of stress, anxiety and depression. That's just how it goes sometimes. But underneath all that, I do know that I am more than all that. I have a stubborn, crazy free side to me. That is part of what grates on some people, part of what leaves me always slightly outside of the "regular people" that I can't quite fit with. I refuse to live according to their rules. I'm not out there fighting everything, but I'm not impressed by symbols of success. I'm impressed with who you really are. With what is underneath the facade. 

I had two really interesting conversations about integrity a little while back. In one, I said that I think integrity is a pass/fail quality. Either you have it or you don't. If it's situational, then you actually don't have it at all. Honesty and moral principles aren't up for debate. That doesn't mean a person's actions can't change based on the situation, but your principles are all you have. If they waver under pressure, were they ever really there?

In the second conversation, someone told me I had "too much integrity for the situation" which I think actually said a lot more about that person than it does about me. 

I'm not 100% sure that I have a point with this post except to say that underneath all the illusions, the status symbols, the veneer, underneath all that, we are who we are. And I understand the need to participate in society. I understand wanting to be liked, wanting to feel like you fit. Just not enough to try hard enough to really do it. I just can't. I can't pretend to be impressed, or fawn all over something that doesn't truly matter to me. Integrity matters. And letting go of all that surface stuff takes a huge weight off. I feel younger and more free.

Sometimes it feels a little lonely when you step off the crazy train of all that, but it's also a big sigh of relief. And technically I am still there. I haven't really changed the external, but inside I am not playing games. I'm searching for something else, hitchhiking towards nirvana, walking off my old self, looking for something new. I might be a seeker, like that old song by The Who, or maybe a little Tangled Up in Blue, like my favourite Bob Dylan song. I don't know if anyone else can relate to this, but it's all true for me.