Hang on travelling woman, don't sacrifice your plan

I would like to say I am a travelling woman, moving through life with my head held high in sort of golden halo of confidence and trust in the world and in my own strength to change it (and myself, a part of it), but I don't think I am. I am a girl, and - just like Alice in her Wonderland - I can be tiny, a child almost, so lonely and powerless, and I can also grow big, almost to the dimension of a grown-up woman (but not quite), with a bright gleam of independence in each gesture.

It is generally a mystery to me how the reduction happens (doesn't it seem kind of unnatural?), and it can leave me sick, even physically, as if my body and mind - my whole being, that artificial division should be avoided - had become those of a stranger. I seem to forget everything and wander through a cloud of fear. Then I find some air and force myself to react and evade my own temporary smallness. It is, all in all, a learning experience: smallness makes me question my life principles, and I emerge with new strength. These reductions make me grow more afterwards.

The fact is that growing up is not a linear process: you grow both down and up, sometimes very fast and other times so slowly you fall asleep from self-boredom. It is painful and lonely and there in no one to do it for you. There's no highway to sunny maturity. In fact, there is probably no sunny maturity where we can head to. Growth just goes on - to nowhere. I hope that the process leads to global improvement, but there is no objective standard on 'human quality', so one can never know for sure; however, I believe that improvement is becoming ever more at home in the world, sharing in its rational structure., emphasising more with other people.

That is the path I try to follow. It warms my heart when I can share the journey with someone else, and I sometimes even feel proud of my own choices (though I know pride is just an inner reward for the self-control, and that cheapens its glow). 

Today,  I feel like a travelling woman: my life lately has been full of discoveries and decisions (of inner dimension). I have definitely been moving on.I am glad I didn't sacrifice my plan in moments of terror, for it came back to me before I lost it, even though life made me tired, told me lies, made me fall.

The plan? To learn, that is, to get a clearer picture of the world (by picture, I mean something including all senses and 'pure reason'). In other words, grander still: to eliminate the distance between myself and the world. 

I feel exhilarated because I have been learning a lot (not only academically), thus living the plan to a good extent. In fact, I feel like everything is going faster: I gain momentum as I live. And I am grateful for all the human warmth I get, but I yearn for more. In fact, after spending months craving and enjoying solitude, I now feel a pit-less thirst for contact, for communication, for touch. I know I am vulnerable to sweet, caffeinated illusions, to falling in love with potential; but I feel awake, and my vision is a loud siren song pulling me on to life.