Sometimes my big dreams scare me. Do I even care that much? The amount of work in my head to get there, it’s exhausting just thinking about it.
Sometimes I fantasize about calling it. Accepting that I could serve tables for as long as my body would allow. Sometimes I think I would be happier.
Why do I feel this compelling urge to create and build? If I just ignored it, would it go away? Or would it return in a more grandiose fashion, with even more tentacles of complexity and pressure and allure? Is this ambition? Is it aspiration? Whatever it is, it’s hard to set aside. Why can’t I just be satisfied with all that already is?
Why is it not enough?
I wish I’d spent more time with my dog. With my dad. I have the chance to spend more time with my mom and know that she needs it and would benefit. And yet. I bury myself in continued work. I guess maybe I am a worker. I enjoy creating and making things. I want self-satisfaction. I want to help others though, too. I cringe far away from emptiness. Would helping others fill me up? What would fill me up beyond the random carbs I’ve been noshing down daily and hourly? What nourishment can I give myself? Is this hormones? Is this midlife malaise? Is this fear?
Is this just a drained personal battery? Where can I plug myself in?
It’s too late to go back. What I had wasn’t all that bad. I didn’t love it, but I could do it.
Lack of structure. Lack of help. Lack of discipline. These are my enemies and also the very thing that I seek out. Freedom has no structure. It cannot be contained. Help implies other people when at my heart maybe I’m more a lone wolf. Discipline is the one I can’t quite crack. I have it even on the worst of my days, but sometimes it fails me. Today it’s failing me. I hate and resent my discipline on many days; it doesn’t let me off the hook very often.
I can hear my father saying, “Just count your blessings.”
I am alive. My family loves me. I have a family to love. I have clothes and a car and a house. “I’ve got a good mother,” just like Jann Arden says. Facing forward, just be myself.
Gotta keep going.
