Putting out the fire with gasoline

I have a problem with impulse control. That might be an overstatement. But honestly, whenever I get passionate about something, I have a tendency to get very single minded about it. I focus only on why this must happen. Obviously (in my mind), there is a reason why I am so passionate about it. Instead of looking at something logically and thoroughly, I tend to rush headlong into it. I stoke the fire of my passion. Nothing can keep me from what I want. Unfortunately, what I want can change without warning. I am not very good at considering others in my decisions. I am ruled by the heart, not the head. Sometimes, people get hurt.

My mother constantly admonishes me for this. The truth is, she is exactly the same way. I can't tell you how many times in my life I have heard "I've gotten a new job, and we're moving to [enter place here]"

I can't settle very well. In my life, I have moved about every 2 years. It is hard for me to hang up paintings and posters, or paint walls. After about 18 months I start to get restless. I have to see something new. Even if I move houses in the same town, it is a change of scenery.

This is because I moved around a lot as a kid. While there is always some fear associated with new places, I tend to focus on the excitement of the promise of new experience.

Its not that I never had a home. Quite the contrary. My mother made every place we ever lived as homey as it could be.

Tucson is home. But I don't find myself tied to a specific domicile like other people do.

When I start to feel passionate about something, it quickly becomes obsession. I can't help it. Sometime I will be driving to school and realize I haven't paid any attention to the road the whole way. I have been lost in my own head, dreaming of the way things could be, or the way things were.

I stare off into space a lot. Usually I am thinking of ridiculous things, like my grocery list. But sometimes, I am completely caught up in a fantasy. I can see my life 20 or 30 years in the future. It is a life that I would have led had I taken a different path, or made a different choice.

That is another thing I think about a lot, missed opportunities.

Right now, I am focused on graduate school. I finally got Cass to see what I see (kind of). He more or less supports me. But I made this very important decision without his consultation or advice. I just decided. I need to work on that. I forget sometimes that I am part of a whole. I am no the only one who matters.

Maybe it is an only child thing. Except for my mother (who pretty much let me do what my heart wanted me to) I really didn't have to have consideration for other people.

I'm not a sociopath. I am empathetic to a fault. I am also blithely inconsiderate. I never ever realize that I am being that way. I always feel immensely guilty when it is brought to my attention.

There are other things that obsess my mind. Some of them I keep private.

I haven't learned how to control my passions. I put out the fires with gasoline.

But in some ways, that is kind of a beautiful thing. There is absolutely nothing in my life that I am not completely passionate about. I love it all. I don't feel like it is worth living with if it isn't worth dying for.

Hopefully, when I look back at my life, I will not regret the things that I did not do.