I'm feeling melancholy and slow and pensive. I'm feeling trapped and stuck and I can't breathe.
I feel like I'm at an impasse, a stalemate, a conundrum of days and ways of life. And the puppy just ate one of my shoes.
I think I haven't taken my vitamin D in a long while. Maybe it's time for a "happy light" purchase. But that just makes me sound mentally ill. And I don't feel mentally ill; I just feel ... stuck. And overwhelmed a little.
I feel like I'm grieving. That's what it is. Grieving for what, you ask? Sigh. I don't want to tell you. I don't want to spell it out loud here on the page. I don't want it to exist. But then I do want it to exist. I want to act on it; and then I don't want to act on it. I want to live a different life, but then I want and cherish the very one I have. I want less chaos in my life because of the pull on my time and energy; and then I want to add more for the excitement and promise. I want to live authentically, with my true self showing at all times, but then I'm too afraid.
Puppies, chickens, husbands, boyfriends, children, IEPs, homeschooling, gardens, special needs, doctors, therapy, traveling, writing, agents, editors, proposals, desires and un-met needs.
I struggle with extremes. Paul told me once that my dreams were diametrically opposed to each other. Yes. True. Like: the fierce dream to travel around the world and wade in multiple cultures and breathe in their essences and write about them -- AND, to live with minimal footprint, on a mountain farm and ranch with a creek and tons of trees, living totally off the grid and completely self-sustaining. I can't do both. Who would take care of my animals while we traveled? Who would tend the gardens? How could I knit and sew all our clothes and household items and still have time to write the books that are milling around inside me like lost travelers? How could I live my dream of using little to no fossil fuels and still fly around the world? I would be (and am) the biggest hypocrite of all.
And so I sit in my office -- with the compact fluorescent light beaming on me, and the dogs play-growling down the hall, and the kids yelling "Don't bark!" and my son locking the puppy in with me so they can hear their television show, and the dog scratching at the door so that I have to get up and let him out so he doesn't tear the paper blinds -- and feel stuck.
6 comments:
I don't think that it makes you a hypocrite to have divergent dreams. It describes an eclectic confluence of diversity and desires. The demand for compromise in life can feel stifling at times. The most we can hope for in these moments is the strength to sacrifice that which confounds our ability to truly love those that mean the most to us.
Well said. However, the strength is what I lack, I fear. I want and need both.
It is a conundrum of choice, not decision; because we have the ability to choose, we feel it makes the choice itself less profound if we don't make the commitment of permanency! You are not weak, but strong beyond measure to step so easily into such diversity. Understanding another culture is no less profound than sewing your own clothes or choosing to share your experiences with others through the written word.
Choose the here and now, always - and you won't ever be disappointed. So live on the farm, and travel. Make your clothes. Live off the grid; but keep a laptop to access the hotspots. None of those things is mutually exclusive in perpetuity, only in the now. And if you think you're less 'authentic' because you mix and match your lifestyle, think again. It's your choice, your privilege.
Signed,
Your friend, who birthed her daughter at home on the back porch in a 150 gallon agricultural trough (on purpose) and took her to the mall six months later to get her ears pierced. :)
(I forgot to check the box for email followup comments so just ignore this post)
Lol! That's so funny Tamara! Thank you for your kind words and I'd love to see that trough sometime. :)
Well now you are on your way to your new life. I hope it is all you have dreamed it to be. We here in your old life will miss you.
Your soon to be ex,
Paul
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