Be Moderate In Everything, Including Moderation.

I was mind-blogging last night, which is when I think about blogging in detail, but don't actually get up from my couch.  I had a question repeating in my head, and applying it's self to every thought that passed through my mind.  So I dragged myself to facebook, and posted quite simply the idea that everything seems to come back to the question "how many is too many?".  The reaction from a few close friends was the obvious connection to how many drinks is too many drinks.  And though this has been one of the biggest connotations to this question for most of my 20s, I was looking at a much bigger picture.

Everything is moderation.  That's what they say.  But finding a balance with anything is really hard when you are growing up.  For quite a few years of my life, the overwhelming question was how many nights out at bars and clubs is too many nights out?  Now, as I am becoming far too complacent in my 2 bedroom ranch-style house, and my value time bag of microwave chicken nuggets, I find the question more appropriate is how many nights alone are too many nights alone.  I don't think I have ever had that divine balance of socialization and down time.  It is always one extreme or the other.  Either I am out every night, drinking too much, and coming home too late.  Or I am getting home from work at 5pm, closing the curtains and sitting in the same spot in my living room night after night for what seems like months now.

I wish I could cut myself some slack, and not constantly question every phase of my life as it happens.  But I wonder if I do too much of something, all the time.  How many hours at work is too many hours at work?  How many hours of sleeping in is too many hours of sleeping in?  How many nights of crying yourself to sleep over the same person is too many nights?  How many cigarettes are too many cigarettes?  How many weeks and days are too many to sit around feeling sorry for yourself?  And on those nights where I am tired of feeling sorry for myself, than that age old question of how many drinks is too many drinks?

One of the things my therapist and I keep touching on is my view of the world being black and white.  I am always trying to classify everything in one of two columns.  Right or wrong.  Good or bad.  Too much or too little.  I haven't yet been able to grasp the idea that we live in gray.  That it will never be as easy as saying this is the appropriate amount of anything.  So I haven't left my house in a while.  I will come out again when I feel like it.  So I haven't entirely moved on from my past relationship.  I will be done with it when I'm done with it.  So I am not really happy right now. I will be happy when I get happy again.  I don't need to constantly pressure myself to do things and feel things for the sake of definition.  I'm in gray right now.  And that has to be okay, it has to be enough.

I am not accepting defeat, or hanging up the towel on life, by any means.  But I do need to let go a bit more.  Realize that I am only one person capable of one day at a time.  It may just be gray for a while. All I know is that this many questions is too many questions.