What matters to you?

Dear you,

"What matters to you?" is the question that seems to be posed over and over again. My mind and flesh still seem to be settling in, like those few moments before the drop of a roller coaster and you hear the tyres creaking. Maybe it will be like that for a while, maybe it will be like that for the rest of my life. I'm still figuring out what it is that I believe in, who I am, and where I belong.

I still ask myself the difficult questions of This or That: money or passion, family or experience, friends or self, enough or more, want or need, speak or be silent. And this list goes on. And even though I've been bothered by it before, tonight I am particularly burdened by whether there is a selfishness in me that overrides the importance of my friends and family. I always seem to be overcommitting and eventually bailing out on plans. I always seem to have people wait on me and depend on my schedule, and rarely the other way round. It is no surprise or secret that I am one of the "busiest", "overworked" people with one of the most "happening" lives. Sometimes I take it as it is-- I just have a lot I want to do and a lot of people to meet. But other times, I wonder if it such traits would then have certain connotations. That I'm never around for things, or that I have to be chased to have a moment with. What if they don't want to chase anymore? And what if chasing in itself is problematic?

For what it's worth, and with no intention of actually defending myself, I acknowledge that I do make efforts to reach out and 'do the chasing' once in a while. But maybe this nagging feeling in my heart is telling me that my efforts are not enough. That I kind of drop those who aren't as easily in reach, but whom I really have a chance to build wonderful, meaningful relationships with. That those who I do reach are very fortunately in arm's length, so benevolently willing to bend their body backwards just for me to have the impression of proximity.

If I have thought about this so many times through, why haven't I changed then? Is it fear; the fear of people and relationships I know so well, that translates even into relationships that I treasure and people whom I adore? Is it that selfishness that I know runs through my veins, the almost innate drive to grasp everything I can for myself even if it is in sacrifice of others, the selfishness I question myself of as I skim over this passage so starkly aware of the number of 'I's there are? Is it this ceaseless heart, which falls in love with every beautiful thing, which runs to the ends of the earth in her dreams-- this wonder over everything?

What matters to you?
I thought it'd be an easy answer by now, the ripe old age of 18 going on 19. I thought it would be as straightforward as   blank  over everything, blood over water, others before self. Of course, when difficult times come there is no doubt that I would give my life for the ones I love. But what about the in-betweens, when life or death is not necessarily concerned? The in-betweens is what they rarely teach us and what we rarely perceive, and I now know it is because the in-betweens are ever-changing. The in-betweens have to be chased, consciously and so fervently, for the conclusion that we decide.

Love,
elle