What I want is what I want...

"I never know what's going on". - Patrick Star

In the dark. Clueless. Grasping at straws. Sometimes I feel like that. It just seems that I have been feeling like that a lot lately. A whole lot more than I want to. I always thought I knew what I wanted. I'm not talking about what I want in life...what I want in life is always changing like the sand dunes of the Sahara, never in the same place, but there's always sand there. I'm talking about what I want. This want is what I want to cherish forever.

I've messed up a lot in the past year. I've gone from happy house husband to clueless soon-to-be divorced back-in-the-workforce man in the span of about eight months. Talk about a shock to the system. I have hurt more people this past year than I care to think about. Unintentional hurt, but hurt nonetheless. If I could go back and redo the past four years, there are lots of things that I would do different. I would definitely try to recognize my wants and strive to get them.

Let's see, first I would still become a stay-at-home dad. Never in my life have I felt more involved with the hands-on raising of my children than when I was in that position. Nothing is better than to have control over how your children are raised, from the good days filled with enjoyable moments to the bad ones filled to the brim with grumpy, back talking youngsters who don't listen to a word I say. What I would change about it is the way that I just let the days go by without deeper interaction with my family. I did spend all day with my kids, but I didn't fill them with memory making moments; I didn't work on teaching my kids more respect; I didn't try harder to teach them as a teacher who is genuinely interested in their intellectual growth would do. I regret that deeply.

I suppose another thing I would change would be my relationship with Linda, the woman who I fell in love with, married and had two beautiful children with. I believe that I let time slip by, watching it nonchalantly grow smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror of my life without noticing things that would make the journey more enjoyable and easier. Time that I could have spent deepening my relationship with her was wasted doing things that I thought was bringing us closer together, but in reality was building the biggest wall of my life between us. Things that I thought we were both enjoying turned out to be just things that I enjoyed, not thinking that maybe, just maybe she didn't enjoy them like I did. I took her silent assents as joyous agreements. I was wrong. Oh, so wrong.

Wants. In the past few months I have messed up again in trying to get what I want. I developed new friendships, and watched some crumble to pieces. I regret things that I have done in the name of what I wanted. Not all things, but most things. I never meant to hurt anyone, or make them believe one thing (which I believed in myself) while ending up going another direction. I do believe that in order to make others happy, you first must make yourself happy. Doing what is best for yourself is a basis of making yourself happy. You can't be happy if you don't follow what you believe is best for your own mind and body...and most importantly, what is best for your heart. Others may get hurt in the process, and this is an unintentional consequence, but you have to hope that the hurt isn't so strong that it destroys good friendships or good people's spirits. Sometimes it's unavoidable, as I have found out.

I am in a position right now where I know what I want, but I am clueless about how to go about getting it and retaining it. I want this "want" to happen so bad, and I do believe that it is happening, but I still have doubts. Not doubts about what I want, but doubts about what it is. I need to make sure that this want is not just something that I have been missing and want to have again, or if this want is a new want that I want because of what it is. I really believe that it is the latter. I also know that this want is not a replacement of an old want. That could never happen. Many hours of self reflection and prayer have gone into this new want. I have feelings that I recognize as new ones, and they are new because the want is new. In the rush to get what I want, I may have gone too fast. Slow and easy is the way to get things that you want. This I do believe. Time to become the turtle.

I want. Of that there is no question. I just hope that what I want wants my wants as well.