Skip to main content

Place in This World

Maybe I've been spending too much time with early teenagers lately, but I've had a lot of thoughts rumbling through my head lately that sound way too much like my journal from 1990. When you're in the middle of that teenage angst, there's always any number of adults around telling you that it will all make sense one day. That eventually you will be at peace with yourself. That "this, too, will pass".

And they do. I see now from my vantage point of 31 (Wow...31? Really?) that perspective comes only with experience. I wrote in my journal the other day that sometimes I want to "crawl into my 12 year old skin". It's not that I really want to live through those days again. It's just that I miss the simplicity of knowing my daily goal was to learn how to solve equations and the gross domestic product of Brazil, to write some notes to friends, to watch my favorite t.v. shows, and go to sleep knowing that my life was just one great big bundle of possibilities.

I miss the possibilities. They've been long buried under bills to pay and dishes to wash and relationships to mend. I feel sometimes like I'm just duct taped together, trying to make it through one more 24 hour period.

At 12, I could be anything I wanted to be. At 31, I can't be anything. I'm too old and too married to be a Cosmo girl. I'm too kidless to be part of the trendy, family crowd. I'm too young to be eccentric. I'm too broke to completely follow my heart. This is a worse "tween" feeling than those precarious teenage years.

I guess I'd really hoped I'd have found my place in this world by now. I thought I'd be a mom and a wife and a writer. Instead, I feel stuck and stagnant, caught between the winds of desperation and fear. My head is rumbling. My heart is beating. My soul is blank.

And I just don't know.
Labels:

Comments

Christy said…
A. You're never too old to be eccentric. In fact, I think *those* possibilities increase with age
B. I know what you mean. Even with kids, I'm not part of the family crowd. It's weird to still not fit in anywhere. To still not know what I'm going to be
5:50 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tough As Nails

I found "The Chub" last night. This is a small, thick spiral notebook that I had carried around with me for several weeks last winter and spring. Its sole purpose was to be an immediate reservoir for any brilliant ideas I had during the day. The only thing I ever wrote in there (besides grocery lists and bill schedules) was during my family's reunion-birthday-anniversary cruise last January. My words were interesting, and I clearly remembered writing them on the little boat that took my aunt, sister, and cousin to go snorkeling in the Bahamas. The funny part was that I wrote about how the breeze was making the weariness "seep from my bones". I read it yesterday while I was home from work. That is, after I was sent home for nearly fainting during a class. Apparently, the look of my skin was so bad that my students thought I was pulling a Halloween prank. While driving myself home, I was thinking about the recent events that led me to the afternoon and how embarra
1 comment
Read more

The Transformation Begins

Do you ever feel like your life is a movie? I hope so because I certainly do, complete with an occasional out-of-body experience and a soundtrack. Right now, I hear Journey in the background and see myself out running each morning, conquering the evil vacuum cleaner, and throwing away my old flannel shirt. The last few days were interesting. My husband and I had few good fights...and lots of laughs. I can't help but think they were related. I know they are. The fights were about establishing boundaries. We finished our budget for June and updated our to do list. At the end of the day, he was completed something he had to have done, and I was working on final edits for my book. I'm really proud of us. We looked at our situation together, set some goals, and we reached them. I'm really proud of him, too. He's the kind of man who doesn't stop until he's completed what he had in mind. I love that tenacity. I guess that's what makes us a good match. I see the big
4 comments
Read more

Frustrated Readers Make Great Fans

I haven’t felt this betrayed by a story line since Neo learned that not only was he not the first person to challenge the Matrix, but he was part of the plan all along. Even though I was sorely disappointed in what appeared to be a cop-out story line, I can understand the logic in that disappointing plot twist. I can’t say the same for Stephenie Meyer’s conclusion to her wildly popular “Twilight” series. Look, I’ve read each of the first three books at least twice, and my grad school entrance paper was a character analysis of Edward Cullen. I loved these books. I read “New Moon” and “Eclipse” in a single day. I’ve been discussing the plot lines and characters with my students for the last two years. It was a long wait for this final book. And a huge part of me wishes I was still waiting. It was that much of a letdown. I’m still debating just how to tiptoe through my inevitable conversations with students about this part of the “Twilight” saga. My students were embarrassed enough by th
5 comments
Read more