everything's just wonderful

oh, yes, i'm fine
everything's just wonderful
i'm having the time of my life
- lily allen

so last night was the first night in 3 that i have slept well all night. the previous two were squandered by fitfull hours of agitation. lying awake in a simmering panic that my life if ticking away and i've yet to figure out what precisely it is that i am supposed to be doing in it. it's not just a job issue, i know, it's an identity issue. confirmed by my re-examination of the enneagram personality types book that my friend lent me.

as a type 4, i'm considered among the 'artist' type - creative, emotionally mature, introspective, individual, candid and intuitive when healthy; and when unhealthy, self absorbed, reclusive and depressed. whether healthy or unhealthy, it appears that one of my most fundamental struggles will be with my identity and the dichotomies inherent in my self-discovery.

i know this book isn't the Bible, and these theories do not dictate anything about my life, but it was somehow comforting to read a chapter about an archetype that sounded so affirmingly like me. i like to be able to put words and labels to things, and this helped tack down some of my chronic frustrations.

overall, i know i cannot complain. even in boring hours at work, even when things are not as i would like. simple pleasures like a skinny caramel latte or soft sand on my feet at the beach or some really fabulous music popping up on my pandora. my friends and my family and my current 'identity' as a sort of pilgrim in a stuck place...

in pondering these recent acute attacks of existential crisis, i keep coming back to this beautiful, inspiring american express ad. to hear diane von furstenburg say that fashion was a complete accident in her life, and that she had no idea what she wanted to do but knew the woman she wanted to become, well, that's brilliant and simple and marvelously challenging for me. who would've thought that my obsession with 'project runway' (during which i first saw this advert) would rally my spirits for the rest of the week?

so who is the woman i want to become?

that's a much more productive place to focus my energies and heart than 'what do i want to do with myself'.