A few days ago I wrote this:
"If time was to be traveled, I would walk fiercely, head down, heavy footed for a marathon of miles and more. Blistered and bleeding I would trudge through both muck and mire patiently, steady and with purpose. I would carry with me no intention of changing the future but only the desire to live again as someone untied, loosed from the responsibility of adulthood. I would embrace every whimsey, dance the night away with the wild nonsenses and play dot-to-dot with stars. I could have you by my side, or her or him or no one at all but the strings of life would have been momentarily cut leaving me suspended with nothing but myself and silence until I say otherwise. I would battle the monsters instead of succumbing to them. I would see them honestly, as they stood, ready for battle but weak and already defeated. I would not resign to the imprisonment of the giant sadness or the constant picking and whispering voice of the enormous fear. I would see the unforgiving fault in needing to be needed and step back in order to wait for a want that presents itself with patience and respect. And should that never come, I would simply spend more nights with whimsey and the wild nonsenses.
I would understand that on my own, just these two feet and the matter between my ears and the painted beautiful mess of my soul, I am worthy."
While I think it is in good heart (and obviously brilliant), when I wrote it I was feeling almost blinded by nostalgia. I think I have mini mid life crisis' approximately every six months and although that statement in and of itself is funny, this is no laughing matter. It is not literally funny, because it means that I am feeling bound up and trapped, looking for something to loose me. It means that the moment, the day that I am in isn't enough, and that is serious business because the day is all that any of us have.
When I get this way, I become not only nostalgic, but dreamy and fantastical. I give my imagination WAY to much mileage and simply sit back to enjoy the ride. Again, the problem here is not imagination or fantastical thoughts, but that all those moments spent lost in what will never be reality are moments of real life that I will never get back. I disengage. And not only that but I get mad at my kids or my husband for needing me because I just want to be somewhere else.
I hate admitting that.
I've been in this particular mid life crisis for about a week, maybe 2 if I'm really being honest, and wouldn't you know that God came a knocking today in the form of my dad, who had just "happened" to be listening to the radio and there just "happened" to be a guy talking about marriage and relationships and life and capturing the feeling of newness even when what you have is old and how important it is to work for that. (Ugh, work).
So then he says to me, (my dad), something along the lines of, "We get all ooey gooey when we are nostalgic because nostalgia does that. It has a way of tricking us into remembering things the way we wanted them to be."
MAN he is so RIGHT. I already knew that but I needed to hear it today. I needed to hear it because I need to be PRESENT. And it is simply impossible for one to be present when one is living inside a song or movie or memory or dream. (More specifically something by Dave Matthews, Pretty in Pink, being 19, a well lit studio apartment with tons of windows and a claw-foot tub- adults ONLY.)
I don't know where I meant to go with this, but I hope someone takes something from it, because I needed to get it out of me. Off to go live my real life now. Which is full of ABUNDANT BLESSINGS by the way. I mean really, who do I think I am?
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