I love writing and I hate writing; as in I love purging my feelings and thoughts and I hate sharing my feelings and thoughts.
About once a year, I write a blog post, which in the saturated blog world, may possible get read by one person: my older sister and as a result, I feel pretty safe sharing here, in the anonymity of the over-saturated platform.
I'm thinking today about gender roles, pets, gardens and careers. Last night it occurred to me that I probably won't ever have a big garden or a big dog again, because instead I'm pursuing a big career. I have one delightful and challenging (aren't they all?) child, one delightful and challenging (aren't they all?) life partner, a large natal family and the job of full-time student.
I grew up assuming that I'd eventually have children.Eventually I'd be a slightly frazzled but totally glamorous and fulfilled stay at home mom juggling music lessons, meal plans, and of course the family dog and cat. There would be lots of small sticky hands, and dirty bare feet and sunshine and escapes into nature.
This did actually all happen, but I was not the parent, I was the child.
It turns out that I can't actually juggle all of those things. For many reasons, I'm not going to live that life, and I'm okay with that, but every once in a while I get blindsided by a subconscious assumption of what a "good life" is (and before we get into a technicality argument, use whatever definition of "good life" you like it amounts to the same thing):
I thought life was going to be different.
I've not found any ideals that make the uneven ground of my subconscious easier to navigate. The inspirational quotes that help a lot of people through their existential crises don't hit me with the same emotional reassurance. The only thing that really seems to help is to look directly at my Big Bad Feeling, take a walk around the perimeter and identify all of its lumps and knobbly pieces. I find that when I take this metaphorical walk, my BBF's (not to be confused with BFF, although sometimes I think my BBF's come close to becoming BFF's if I am not cautious in how I handle them) begin to diminish in size until they are proportional to the other feelings in my life, and they fade away into my past lives. Who I was yesterday is not not who I am today. Who I will be tomorrow is not who I am now.
While I still enjoy spending time gardening and training dogs, and the work of caring for children, I've also found other pieces of life that I love like going to school and *gasp* even doing the homework. I love doting on my only baby and I also love dropping him off at preschool. I love visiting with the pets in my extended family, and I love coming home to and waking up in a quiet pet hair-free home.
Life is different than I expected it to be at 36, but I'm cool with that,
