Tired and writing while learning online defensive driving. Everyone is in bed.
Earlier I read some guy's article about happiness and the same guy's article about courage, and I'd be more enthusiastic about how inspired I feel if I weren't so sleepy.
Go after what you want!!!
Variations on that theme are what I repeatedly find. Have goals, and the courage to pursue them. Dream big. Go out on a limb.
Which leads me to the question, what do I really want? It is something I've asked myself too many times to count, but been unable to answer. And all the while my life has built itself around me. I guess it's kind of like that John Lennon quote, "Life is what happens when you're making plans."
All I've ever wanted to do is travel and write. But somehow that's not good enough. And now it seems unattainable, circumstancially.
In a way I'm kind of undriven, kind of content to go with the flow or what have you. But this other part of me has this desire, so strong, to have an extraordinary life. Not a life of "success" by someone else's definition. Just a full life. An interesting life. But I feel at a loss in a way. How can I have the freedom to follow what the universe brings me when I have a family to take care of?
I know that I need to be courageous, but it is definitely difficult when parenting and raising a family is so based in fear. Am I providing enough stabillity? What about financial security? Germs! Bad foods! Pedophiles! College funds! Fuck!
I love my daughter more than anything, and I want to do right by her, but what is this? Where is there room in all this for either one of us to live? It's like, if you don't follow the prescribed formula of raising a child, you're a failure as a parent.
I am so grateful for my family and the fact that I only have to work 3 nights a week and that I'm the one who gets to spend the majority of the time with my daughter. But sometimes, in the haze of the laundry and the cooking and the cleaning and the whining and the entertaining of children and the errands, I lose that perspective a little, and I think, "is this it?" Is this what I "plan to do with my one wild and precious life"?
I guess I just need to keep in mind that this is temporary. My daughter will not be so little for so long, and soon the days will come when I miss her adorable innocence. As she grows, we both earn more and more of our own independence. She won't be my baby for long, and these are the times to savor, because they only happen once. Soon enough it will be my time again, and I'll miss these days fiercely.
Wow, I think i just wrote myself out of a hole.
I truly feel a lot better about my current station in life. So much so, in fact, that I can't wait for tomorrow when I can wake my daughter up, and just play with her. Soon enough she'll be grown. But today she's 2 3/4. And I'm her mom.