I caught myself earlier this week saying to myself, “I need to find something to do. I need to keep myself busy.”

Image Source: YouQueen, “Activate Your Passion with a Hobby”

I looked back at the past couple of months–how April I finally produced a $30k production and May was full of concert-going and interviewing musicians. I realized how much fun I had doing it all, but that I was entirely on my own throughout, in a way.

“What will June have to offer?” I thought.

Finals, transitioning a new board, entering summer… This momentum keeps me motivated and going.

I thought of how I always feel the need to be active in doing what I love to feel productive. I cannot stand wasted days or not living my youth up to its fullest potential.

And then I looked at all of my surface relationships. I can say that I lack real close-knit relationships but, strangely, at this point in my life, I am okay with this feeling of being alone. Loneliness only becomes a bother when you have nothing to hold yourself for.

I thought that if I so often wish to be proactive and constantly chase after myself, what room do I have to develop human connections?

A part of my early love for connecting with individuals and industry professionals was the fact that I was always so intrigued by the stories of other people. Perhaps growing up, I never really had a solid foundation of who I was. I had to discover music to fall in love with it; I had to find writing for me to feel comfortable. I knew what I liked and didn’t like, and I knew what was comfortable to me and what was not. I forged my own idea of myself in a way, and I sought others to perhaps find pieces of myself I resonated with.

I began to realize a genuine compassion and care for others in my relationships throughout my childhood. More often than not, I wanted to support, help, guide and care for others, rather than selfishly take the relationship for my own. I wanted to give and please rather than develop something more intimate with the person, no matter how much they opened up to me.

That habit is probably still apparent today, and it is not that I am scared or afraid of becoming intimate. Rather, perhaps it is because I haven’t felt the interest or inclination to. Perhaps I haven’t met the right kind of people who have sparked that interest. Maybe I’m just plain lazy. I don’t know what it is.

But, I am happy being me. I am happy doing the things I want to do and love to do.

When I try to picture myself, I often laugh and picture some happy-go-lucky girl sitting on the grass, away from other people and the world, just with her guitar quietly smiling and humming off into the distance, seeming to be lost in her own world and feeling happy as can be.

People see her. They notice her. They smile and are pleased by her company.

But when the music stops, or if she ever gets tired playing for a moment, what is she to do then?

Maybe that scares me for a moment.