Scapegoat

I feel like I have 9 different lives that I try to stir together, only they never dissolve into each other. I have my high school life, my family life, my freshman year life, my Portugal life, my college life, my summer life, my roommate life, my home ward life, my inside-my-brain life.  

Don't get me wrong, I'm still me. But my heart is stretched so thin in so many places and I try to bring it all together but I just can't, and I end up feeling like I'm broken. I don't want to miss out on things with my family, so instead I miss out on my roommates, and I don't want to miss out on them so instead I miss out on my Portugal life—I guess time really is that fickle friend that doesn't allow you to be thirty places at once, and you'll always be missing out on something.  

I could blame it on other people, that they are just too great and give me too many reasons to love them. I could blame it on homework and say that I am just too busy, or I could blame it on work and say that I'm just too tired. I could blame it on the lazy side of me and say that I'm just not ambitious enough, or I could blame it on the adventurous side that always wants to be finding new lives to add to the nine that I already have. I could blame it on my heart for loving to many people and things and places, or I could blame it on my eyes for finding things to beautiful.  

Or I could stop finding scapegoats and realize that it's the nature of life.  

I'll always miss something. I'll always be labeled and titled and have assumptions made about me. I'll always have wanderlust and yet I'll always be a homebody. I'll always want to love more than I'm ever able to carry it out, and I'll only add more and more facets to the life I live, more numbers to my nine.  

But there doesn't have to be discontent. I guess that comes with acceptance. With letting yourself roll down the river of life and enjoy the scenery—the towns along the banks, the kayaks floating by, the branches overhead—rather than stubbornly insisting on staying stuck in the mud until you have the capacity to take it all in.  

Reality is, you'll never be ready. You'll never feel fully confident and prepared and capable of soaking in every moment, appreciating every opportunity, and loving every person the way they deserve.  

And you could find scapegoats and dig your toes ever deeper in the mud. Or you can learn to float, to soak in the sunlight and feel the water stream through each strand of your hair as you float around the next bend, doing your best to appreciate the moment for what it is.