A lot to say, and no clue where to start

I posted this quote as my status on Facebook, because I am in an introspective and confused place right now, and a lot of it has to do with fate.

"Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her. But once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game." -- Voltaire

I have this weird internal problem with myself, a complexity that comes up a lot. It is probably due in part to who my parents are, and how different their personalities are.

I am like a dual personality inside a single person. No, not in a "Sybil" way...just that I have these 2 very distinct sides to myself that occasionally do battle and definitely don't line up.

Ironically, until I was probably 28 years old or so (hmm...coincidence that this was around the time my child was born?), I was blissfully unaware of this split in who I am. I had no idea the one side existed. What I did know is that despite seeming to follow "the right path", I was battling a low level of unhappiness. It came out in subtle ways - a short foray with an eating disorder, some bouts of depression, covering myself in oversized clothing, etc. But it was always there. It was like an old shoe - it seemed like it was just supposed to be there.

So what's this split?

Well there is the obvious part of me. Serious. Responsible. Nerdy. Reliable. I follow the right, scripted, obvious path, happily, and am a good girl.

That's who I was for 28 years. It came naturally and everyone seemed happy that that's who I was. I was fine with it - except for that unsettled feeling.

I found myself trying to downplay how I looked. I shoved aside my worries and feelings of unsettledness as me overthinking things. I had my bad girl moments here and there, but they were fleeting and guilt-filled.

And then something in me snapped a little. It was slow - maybe more of a slight tearing - but I started to realize that maybe there was more to me than the good girl - and that's what had been nagging me all these years. I have an adventurous, somewhat free-spirited side to me. I'm never going to be the "cut loose without thinking" kind of a person - I'm always going to overthink everything. But I have a little bit of my Dad in me - the type of person who wants to live and learn and experience outside the confines of "safe".

It's been a long 7 or 8 years of thinking about this and wondering what to do with it. It's funny to think that some people know who they are their entire lives. They are confident in the people they are and they just ARE. That didn't happen to me. I had to have this mini life crisis, probably induced by a rather nasty year of post-partum depression. Great...

So now what do I do? This is my problem - hence the quote above.

I don't have any answers and I'm not sure I ever will. Instead, I have this odd inner dialog between Good Andrea and Bad Andrea going on sometimes. They don't really fight, per se, but they definitely have clashing opinions at times.

There is a reason I have come through this veritable life crisis and now get it. There is a reason that I feel in touch with this other side of me.

Problem is...the logical, rational, planner part of me wants to know what that reason is.

And I haven't the foggiest.

Sigh.

Ok, note to self - do not try to blog when having an IM conversation and a text conversation. My train of thought is gone. LOL. More later...from the bipolar runner girl...