Ramblings...

August 30, 2016

It is amazing to be at peace with who you are and also have the luxury of time to figure out what that means in terms of my role in the world.  I have felt like an outsider looking in on the world for much of my life, which, now, in retrospect, allows me to fully be me and offer to others all that I have seen and learned and experienced.  This makes me happy.  I have no fear of what will come but I am full of anticipation for what will be. 

I have tried to walk my own path and for the most part have been fortunate to do so.  This is not an easy journey because many of those around you do not choose to do so, but rather, to follow the conventions of our current way of life.  That is cool for them, but I don't want to.  Sure, I went to school, learned how to earn my way in life, got married, had kids because some of the 'normal' feels right, but I have tried to do so on my own terms and because I consciously wanted to, not felt I had to do it.  I am not a fan of the 'sheep/herd' mentality as many follow along because they are expected to and not think about if they want to.  Conscious choice is where it's at.  If you consider all the options and end up taking the 'conventional' path, it is not done as a sheep but as a thinking being, who, after weighing all the options, chose to take this path.

Ramble, ramble, ramble.  Not sure where I wanted to go with this but sometimes it helps to just jot it down and get it out of my head.

Anyhoo, here is a little piece I started recently to work my way through my latest twist and bend in the road that is my life.


The Gift
MPOTOCKI

She was free.  But it did not feel free.  It felt more like detox.  Cold sweats.  Headachey.  Doubt.  Fear.  None of that would be found in any definition of "free" she had seen.  Laying back down in bed, hoping to ride it out but wondering how long this was going to take.  She had time now!  She could do all the things she had complained about not being able to do before, yet couldn’t get out of bed and when she did, she moved about zombie-like and without purpose.
'Maybe', she thought, 'if I get a routine started, that will snap me out of this funk.’ So every morning it was coffee outside in the fresh air and sunshine, usually with her kitty on a string, eating grass.  The grapevine on the fence was filling in nicely so if she didn’t face the brewery, she could almost imagine that there were no other houses or people so close by.  She tried to forget about her phone and stop playing the dumb games she wasted her time with when she didn’t have any time to waste.  She managed to delete one but was on level 552 in the other.  Now that was a commitment worth keeping she convinced herself.

After coffee was supposed to be a walk; however, by the time she would drag herself out of bed, reheat the coffee and sit outside for a bit, it was already getting too warm to walk.  "Fall is coming," she thought.  "I will be able to walk then.“  "Besides, the girls will be in school and I will have the house to myself. " Like that was a motivator, but she was hopeful.  This was a new start…again…for the umpteenth time.  Days like today were the ones she wished she was just like everybody else and accepting of the place that they were at in that moment.  Content with what they had achieved or given up entirely on those things they would not achieve any longer and be OK with it.  "Ha!“  Expectations were her drug and like a drug, they whirled her in and out of reality, tearing her down then building her up but always pushing her toward that next fix of expectations meeting reality.

It had happened, literally, a handful of times and those times were amazing but not enough to sustain her through the million other letdowns in her life.  To be fair, they were not really letdowns so much as failed expectations.  Of course, if she had had 'normal’ expectations instead of her 'doomed to fail’ expectations, she would have been happier.  She could blame movies or books but that would just be a scapegoat.  She was a rare, passionate, artistic soul who managed to expect everyone to live how she thought they should, doing the things that she expected them to do and being disappointed much of the time.