“Where is the youth we left behind?  Where is the truth that cannot hide?  Where is the world you had in mind?  Was it lost in you, is it lost in me?” - Colin Armstrong

I don’t know who I am anymore. 

There’s a me that I want be, a very distinct, happy me.  But I’m not him.  There’s a me who wakes up at 7 A.M. and goes for a stroll down 5th Avenue or Bleecker Street in NYC as inspiration settles in.  That me settles in with a sleek laptop whose battery never seems to die in a cozy, modern coffee shop.  That me writes for a couple of hours while he sips on a White Chocolate Mocha that he has only ordered because he doesn’t want to seem like a freeloader in said coffeeshop.  That me then spends the afternoon walking the long loop around Central Park or staring at a Salvador Dali painting at the Met.  The day is often finished up with a casual dinner in an Italian restaurant with a healthy glass of red wine before I retreat to my modest, but comfortable loft apartment.

That me doesn’t exist.  In fact, only one aspect of that me really exists, and it is the aspect that is noticeably absent in the above portrait - that of relationships.

The me I see is less than ideal.  The me I see is confused and lost and distinctly not happy.  The me I see takes odd jobs to make the ends meet, but is never satisfied at the end of the day.  The toil is unrewarding and the outcome meaningless in the grand scheme of things.  He then goes home to no one.

The me I see has begun making friends again, but the me I see seems to be willing to sacrifice these friendships for a future that may or may not land me in the life of the me I want to be.  I don’t like the me I see now, but I value the relationships I’ve been blessed to have.  But when relationships are so few and far between, how do they factor into the me I want to be?  My head spins and I walk away with fewer answers and more questions than when I began.

I don’t like the me I see, and the me I want to be is very clearly not me.  If I cannot be the me I want to be, what me am I supposed to be?  Will other people be a part of the me I am supposed to be?  Could that be a new me I want to be?  How do I know if that’s a me I want to be?  What does a new me look like when all I have to base him on is the people around him and ambitions related to the original me I wanted to be are no longer factored in?

I don’t know who I am anymore.