Do most of us have a vision or a dream of what our perfect lives should look like, but an inability to attain it? Is it idealistic or selfish to wish for a different you than the one you live with each and every day? I am struggling to live in the now...I suppose I have been stuck in that rut for some time. I have a vision and I just don't know how to get there. Let me rephrase that. I don't know if I'm supposed to get there. When you get married--and especially when you have children--you take on a new identity; a we, not just me, unit that must be considered as a whole. But the 'we' can't entirely work properly if the 'me's' inside of it aren't in tune, right?
Here's my vision (or at least an aerial view of it):
1. A happy, harmonious family unit. Yes, there will still be the normal bickering, but a little less of the tension we have looming over us now would be nice.
2. Music all around us: I always envisioned having a little pick up band that would come to my home once a week or so and play music and drink wine. M's often quite deeply plugged into music-especially when it is live--and I have always thought having a sort of hippie, extended, musical family would benefit him greatly. Last time that happened was on our front porch in Austin, 2007. That's over three years ago for those of you who have killed enough brain cells (like me) to not be able to do basic math :) In other words: too damned long ago. Oh, you should have seen M at that party! He stood an arm's length from the electric guitar player; mesmerized and calm. It was beautiful.
3. A home that we love and want to live in for the rest of our lives (or at least feel like we'd want to). We move around. A lot. Our last home (same one that had that magically musical front porch!) was pretty close to perfect. We had four, fully-fenced acres to safely play on with the most beautiful trees I have ever seen on a residential plot in Central Texas. The deer had babies in our yard each Spring, and from my office window I welcomed back the monogamous pair of woodpeckers as they returned year after year to the same oak tree to kick out the wintering house wrens and have their babies. We watched our creek ebb and flow with the rains, saved a snake once from some garden twine, and took tractor rides down the block to feed the neighborhood goats. I miss having that space!
4. More quiet moments to reflect and write. I have fleeting moments of profound thoughts running through my head. Those are few and far between these days, and other less appreciated moments zap them from my thoughts almost as soon as they've appeared. I know I have a voice to share. I know I have things to put to paper (or blog as it were) that could very well help me process this life and get one step closer to my own version of nirvana, but it's all happening so fiercely and so quickly that I have no time to let it simmer and soak.
Like now, for instance...I've gotten up no less than five times to attend to everyone else's needs. This is life as a parent, I realize. And M is now about four feet from me with his ipad blaring another Disney movie, so I've gotten up a sixth time to turn down the volume. The flow of thoughts that were in my head before I started this post have withered and I am left once again feeling like I didn't quite express what I wanted to, and I certainly have no idea how to conclude it.
I am not living the life I know I am capable of living. This much I know is true. And so the days keep coming and going, no more fulfilled than the last. And my children suffer for it. And I suffer for it. And I must figure out a way to find that music and make it a part of our daily lives.
4 comments:
For being out of sorts, you certainly articulate well! I understand what you're saying. I struggle with similar issues, but have accepted our lives as constant change. I have a feeling that one day I'll look back and realize just how wonderful it all was - chaos and all. Right now, it just seems to be so consuming.
You'll do it, Deb.
One step at a time, one note at a time, one wine at a time.
And FWIW, now I want to live in Texas too!!
:)
i could have written an almost identical post. It really struck me when you stated that youre not living the life you know you are capable of living. Really hit home. So many of us are not, BUT... you have an advantage... you KNOW what you are capable of making. You KNOW it is in your hands. You are ENVISIONING it and that is light years ahead of most who just live the day in day out floating and floundering, not knowing that what they imagine can become reality. Baby steps. A thousand mile journey to the peak of a mountain always starts with the first step. And then another step. then another. You can do steps. Think of the steps and soon you will be there. Its when we stand still and stop dreaming that we are truly lost :)
big hugs!
How about a small hand held tape recorder like doctors use that you can just turn on in a hurry speak what you want to remember and play it back later?
And ear buds or head phones for the ipad.
How about video of folks playing instruments as one of his videos he can see on his ipad?
Does he have a guitar? You never know what will make a connection with him...he could be genius on it.
Trips out into nature whenever you can. A quiet local park.
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