hi anyone, everyone, friends, strangers, accidental viewers...today is saturday and it is raining. a little known secret is that i love rainy days. i love rain. it really takes the pressure off in terms of my expectations for the day. rain says to me, go ahead and do whatever you want today and dont worry you dont have to feel guilty bc it is raining and so you couldnt--train for a marathon, climb a moutain, kayak, or garden anyway. yes, some people still do these things but the general consesus is that you get a pass if it raining. or at least i get a pass. having given myself a pass for today already i instantly feel thoughtful, creative, and inspired--or at least i feel that those things are on there way.
last night i was up again. i managed to apply for a job which is major progress for me given my recent state of total paralysis by analysis (phrase heard at meeting--cant take credit for). anyway, caught in my pba i read thru job openings and then spend hours contemplating a life with said job. then i think about all angles of this job and eventually feel so freaked out by all of the different ways that this job would be different, challenging, not challenging, not different enough etc that i decide i need to think about it more and maybe it is better if i wait and dont apply. i know, i know. this makes no sense at all. this is where i am at though. so last night at 1am i broke thru this and applied for a job as a detox counselor at a hospital. after i applied i thought about how i have once again opted for a job that is not creative, does not involve writing, probably pays nothing. i thought about the great suits i wore in advertising and the cool office i worked in.
laying in bed last night, i was thinking about way too much. where i have been, where i am, where i am going. i tried to make sense of my life. i thought about how i looked in the mirror yesterday and honestly and for the first time thought i looked older. not old. just older. i thought i looked my age and i felt acutely aware of time and how quickly life passes when we're not paying attention. i thought about how i am happier now then i ever was at 26 and what that means. i thought about how i finally feel like i sort of know where i am and where i want to be and how it took 36 years to get here. i wondered about people who feel this way at 26 or even 16. i wondered about people who feel this way for the first time at 66. i thought about how it doesnt really matter. time. age. i realized i have been competing with a fictionalized version of myself who went to georgetown, majored in english, and became a writer.
i thought about how i visited georgetown in 7th grade, when my grades were still good, when i had never smoked a joint or had a beer. i thought about how i told my dad i was definitely going there. then i thought about being 15 and learning to roll a joint. i thought about deciding i really didnt care about what college i went to. i thought about not caring about anything except my friends and alcohol and drugs for the next ten years. huh. i thought i may have hated georgetown. i thought i may have loved it.
i tried to let it go.
that is my job today. to let it go. to stop beating myself up for not having the life that i could have had and start feeling good about this life. the life i have. the choices i have made. my beautiful children, my strong and life-loving husband, my amazing friends, my kind parents--, my little fiesty sister. all of it. the fictionalized version of me is over. there is just me, the me that i have really created not the one that i made up to make myself feel bad.
it is time to start using my imagination for good and not for evil. to start becoming the person that i can be today not lamenting the person i could have been yesterday. this is it. time to be in the solution, the now.
hope you can too. xx
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