It seems that I’ve forgotten how to live in the present.
I ache for the future, now. I want something new and different.
I was standing in my closet the other morning contemplating the day’s clothing choices and started thinking about this. Have I always been this way? Never satisfied? Never able to enjoy the place I’m in?
I decided that I haven’t. The first thing that came to mind was when I lived on Martha’s Vineyard; I seriously sucked that experience for all it was worth, and loved (or hated — but at least LIVED) intently in the moment. And in college, or at least the first three years of it, I hung desperately to my life, always moving and constantly challenged, but not dissatisfied. It’s been different, maybe, ever since I got back from the Vineyard. I know whatever that experience was affected me in many positive and negative ways — I’m guessing I’ll feel aftershocks of it until I die — so maybe this is another consequence of that? I don’t know.
All I know is that it frustrates me to live in a dreamworld, in the “next” thing. I want to enjoy my life, because I know I only get one. I can appreciate that, I can see it. But when it all comes down to how I live, most of the time I can’t seem to segue my understanding of that fact into some carpe diem, into actually living like I know it.
I suppose this is the battle: enjoying where you’re at, but never becoming stagnant. Always moving, but being OK with standing still.
Damn, I suck at this.
I don’t want to be one of those people that when people talk about me they say, “Wow, but he’s just never happy, is he!? Always discontent; never satisfied.” And then they say to Allison, “How do you put up with that all the time? Doesn’t it drive you crazy?”
I’m sure it does. But please, just know that it drives me crazy, too… and I’m working on it.
Josh, there are not enough words to describe how closely I related to this post of yours. Nearly every word (except the stuff about the Vineyard) resonated loudly and strongly in me. I find it interesting that you can pin point the time in which you began feeling this way (or living this way). I can’t figure out when this started in me. I fear that I may have always been this way. I’m always waiting for the “new.” It’s irritating. It’s so exciting to dream and to imagine what things could be like or what I could do. Sometimes it’s so exciting, in fact, that I rest in the dreaming. Scary. I wish I had an answer to this, but I don’t. I don’t even need an easy one. I’d take a difficult one.
Josh, I miss you, friend. It’s sad not seeing you and Allison each week. I really want to come to a show. So…I will go right now and check when your next one is. 
Good post. Really good post.
Funny, I relate to this exactly.
i love you, even if both you and i struggle with living in the “present.”
i’m not sure what to say other than i’m glad you recognize this trend in your life (as i recognize it in mine), and that i’m stinking amazed i get to be with you for life.