continually wondering

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about what the meaning of life is. Ok, yes I realize that sounds really corny and cliche, but I am serious. One thing that I think I have settled on is that everyone has a different meaning to their lives. For some, maybe the thing that gives them the best feeling about life, and therefore is the meaning of their life is having children. I see that more and more since my friends tend to be getting older and getting married. It is amazing how much they change (in a good way) when they have kids. Their whole lives are about the kids. That is amazing and wonderful to me. On the other hand, some people's lives are more about the person they are spending their life with; partner, lover, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife...whomever it may be. This is also amazing. It seems to me that wherever I look I run into one of these two types.

There are not all that many people around here who are simply committed to their career and education and that is it. It is odd to run into people like that. I feel like it is becoming more and more clear that my life is really centered around my job and my education. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but your career won't be by your side for your entire life. It won't take care of you when you are sick. Your career won't sit next to you and watch bad Lifetime movies and cry at all of the cheesy parts with you...

I keep thinking that I really need to work more people into my life, people who are really meaningful and true friends. I look around and feel like that is something that I have really struggled to develop here, even though I have been here for almost 9 years. I don't really have many "go to" friends; people I would call when I am sad or mad or having a bad day. I certainly don't have that "one" person who I tell everything. It is kind of a bummer, but I wonder if it is just because I don't NEED that. Maybe the more you are by yourself, the more you get used to it and you start to get set in your ways and become used to consoling yourself when things go wrong.

Anyway, what this really all amounts to is that I think I would be happy if I were to simply be alone for the duration of my life, however I imagine that I would be even happier with someone special and maybe a family one day to share it all with.