The Road Home
Not really a destination, but I'm having a hell of a time on the journey. The Road Home can mean so many different things to me. It means maybe one day I might work my way back to Wisconsin, it means I may find a new 'home' that I will have to work towards, maybe Italy, maybe Florida. It also means that maybe I will find that thing, you know that one thing we are all looking for, like that 'it' thing that some people have. You know when some people say that girl has 'it'. Maybe it means happiness nothing more, nothing less. I suppose it expresses that I haven't yet found my place in this world. That is me, a woman who is so confused about her purpose, her destination, the only thing she is certain about is confusion. I know I don't know what I am suppose to be accomplishing, I just hope to hell life is more than 'this'. This being a crappy location, a great job where I am making zero money, white trash that surrounds me. The point is that you find resolution in some of the most unlikely places. Maybe when you stop trying to prove yourself to everybody else, you just might find that YOU are content! This is such a foreign concept to the generation that needs everything RIGHT NOW, success included. Somehow we have gotten the impression in this 'dog eat dog world' (and I'm wearing milk bone panties) that we must be happy by 25, we need to have our careers figured out. We either need to be happily married or going out every night with our girlfriends ala the Sex & the City influence. Those are our choices. There is no in between without disappointment. The need not only to please, but to prove ourselves, to our parents, our siblings, our friends, our rivals, everybody at that damn high school reunion, prove that we can do it better than they ever thought about, is overwhelming. It is about having the balls to break through those barriers. To address the issues, to talk about it, to communicate, expecting the worst and realizing our full potential through a little bit of failure and quench our pride.
This blog has helped me realize the need to write, I never thought I was particularly good at it, still don't! Of course, this is the worst you will ever see of it, since I spend NO time editing or organizing. It is not always pretty, the words that end up on the page. But the act of writing has become my haven. Some play the piano, or another musical instrument, but my fingers flying over the keyboard make my own music, even if it is the backspace. Sometimes my words run back to me like poetry in motion, sometimes they end up a garbled inconceivable mess only understandable if you live in my brain. Sometimes I just can't get it out and make it make sense. It is so good to get my thoughts on paper, even if in the beginning they are nothing but a jumbled mess, I know that later I can go back and sort them out to read well, edit until my heart's content. Then again maybe I will just scrap it, put it in the recycle bin and move on. Maybe I just need to free them, the same way that we fly a kite. Does it serve a purpose besides freeing our minds? No, it doesn't make the world a better place, it doesn't advance our position at work it doesn't make our families understand us, it just frees our minds. We watch the ribbons flying in the breeze and let our worries float above it. We free our minds and release our souls to go their own ways for just a few brief moments.
I suppose I let myself be intimidated by people that have the back covers of their books covered with MBA acknowlegements and other degrees of accreditations. Mine will read, what? Wonderer? Career jumper? Lost girl? I'm afraid it will look more like the side of a milk carton, this girl need to be found. I suppose I can market a book that way, surely I'm not the only girl out there that feels this way. I read blogs everyday that revolve around this very issue. We as a generation have NOT found IT yet. We haven't found the relationship that makes us light up inside. We haven't found the career that gives our lives meaning. We haven't found the perfect place to live, we can't afford to buy all of the clothes that our fashion magazines and pop culture outlets insist we need to achieve happiness. Can we blame this on our culture? How about our parents? Do we want to prove they were wrong by marrying early and often unhappily? Do we want to prove our father's wrong by having better jobs than they ever dared dream about? We make more money, have more things and are twice as independent. Does it make a difference? Is our fight for independence not liberating, but suffocating? I think some days it is. I suppose somehow we are doing one or the other trying to please our parents or trying to prove them wrong, it's a toss for each of us. I know that I fought to prove them wrong and please them. I always thought they wanted better from me, they would be proud to see me take the risks that they talked about but couldn't follow through on. How wrong I was, instead they looked at me like I was crazy, they have yet to understand any of them. Everytime I tell them about the new direction that my life is taking they feign ignorance and grasp denial. Maybe they just want me to be settled so they don't have to worry anymore. I don't know why they insist on worry, it is not like I will come back to live with them if I fail! I will simply go a different direction, eventually I'm bound to find one that works.
I get the same rush writing for the blog or when I get a good comment back on a blog. I suppose it is a way to be validated, to prove I exist.