Wisdom calls from every corner. When will you listen?
Where I grew up...girls are girls and men are men. (And the cows are nervous!) The girls all seem to ultimately become nurses. The Valedictorian of my sons graduating class, (he graduated from the same high school that I did), went to the local community college and became an RN. If you live where I live, its very difficult to believe that there is actually a nursing shortage.
Many of the people commute to Saint Louis, they have specific jobs with specific titles. Others work for local companies driving trucks, doing construction etc..
The adults around me, (besides being farmers) were accountants, an occasional lawyer, teachers and of course, nurses. Everything is all spelled out for them and it is all very practical and they seem to find it very soothing. I'm not like them. It isn't soothing to me at all, it sounds like a jail sentence to me. (Oh Jessie, I'm not talking about you!)
Since I read a lot, I was aware that there were other things that one could do that weren't so specific, which in my mind has always meant the same thing as limiting...but I had never seen anyone do any of these things. It always felt to me like these things were beautiful myths or romantic fables, they were unlikely to happen to me, they only happened to the few and fortunate.
If I had told someone where I grew up, I was going to become an archaeologist or a cultural anthropologist or anything that sounded slightly interesting...they wouldn't even have understood, not even most of the adults. Actually, they might have even laughed at me..to my face or behind my back. They didn't think that these things were possible either. Who cares what they think, right? Unfortunately, I did.
I am an imaginative person but sadly my imagination failed me in such a big way. I don't know if I'll ever fully understand how or why. But even more importantly, and this may be what I need to understand, my faith failed me. Remembering back, I know that there was no feed-back, no guidance, no examples,no-one to lead the way, ....not there. The guidance counsellors had this list of acceptable occupations and there were about 20 or 30 listed and these were what you were guided towards and that was it.
I went to college undecided about what I wanted to do. None of the list of professions that my counsellors had told me about sounded appealing and as I said, I didn't have the faith to imagine.
I loved college! My dreams woke up! I was taking lots of different classes! I was enjoying myself so much! I was lit up! I was enthusiastic! I looked forward to my days! I looked forward to my future!
And inexplicably, I ended up giving up. I was with someone who criticized me all the time and I believed him. This is no excuse however, my real enemy was inside of myself. It the demon that destroys us from within, and the one inside of me was legion and it kinda got loose and went on a murdering spree inside of me and damn near killed me.
I listened to the bastard and I got trained for a job with a specific title and with specific and limited duties just like they always told me to do. And whoa! I was respectable! What a heady feeling, no longer the wild gypsy. I was appropriate and conforming. The gypsy was banished but she trudged away muttering prophetically...."Just wait! You'll miss me one day!"
It didn't take long actually. I no longer felt enthusiastic about the future, my job was something to be tolerated until it was time to clock out and I could come home and could spend a little time being who I actually am. And there was never enough time to be who I was because who I am is pretty big! There seemed to be nothing in front of me but an eternity of sadness. I crammed time for 'my real-life' in between the lines and told myself that this was good enough. I was putting food on the table and a roof over our heads and after all....many people in this world don't even have that so how indulgent of me to complain.
I stuffed it inside and ignored my own pain and told myself that I was immature...that I wouldn't be mature until I could let go of these childish dreams. You can't just run off and join the circus when you have 2 small children! I felt that I had no real choices. Of course, there are always choices...I know that but I have kids to feed and they will have to go to college one day and I don't need a buch of loans to pay off when that day comes. Ultimately, I lied to myself and we know that that doesn't work forever.
"Most men live lives of quiet desperation." I used to love Thoreau but now he really pissed me off! I had this strange, irrational feeling that he was chiding me. I was one of those miserable people living a life of quiet desperation and he had my game and he thought I was a real coward. He would dare to judge me! (Talk about being sensitive, eh!) But I had my defense. His words were those of a slacker. He was sort of the anti-bellum version of Garth and Wayne, his generations version of the guy living in his parents basement.
But of course he was right and I knew it even then, The people who are self-actualized, who have made it to the top of the mountain, they are the ones who can see over to the other side and lead us to what is ahead. Thank god for them.
The Zen of Belly Dance!
I started taking Belly dancing lessons. I hooked up with an old friend, we have known each other since we were three. We are a lot alike but she followed her muse and I didn't. She is a belly-dance instructor and has her own studio. I have post-traumatic stress disorder.:) She is so happy! I feel like I am recovering from a long illness. I think meeting up with her was one of those synchronicity thingies. Just at the time in my life that I need to learn this lesson, there it is.
I want to be happy! I want to be deliriously happy! Don't tell me it isn't possible, I don't believe you! I want to leap out of bed with a song in my heart and go bounding out of my house to meet the world. I want to be so happy that people look at me jealously and say, "She can't possibly be for real!" I don't even care if they think that I am on drugs! At the very least, I don't want to wake up and pull the covers back over my head dreading the rest of the day before my feet even hit the floor.
When I started the Belly dance lessons, I was a complete klutz. Sometimes I was knock-kneed, sometimes I went the wrong way and practically knocked people over and now I can do a dance. A whole dance! And I can do it passably!
Do you know what? I think that it is so good for my daughters to see me doing this. To see me doing something and looking like a complete dork and continuing on with it and actually accomplishing it.
Know what else? I want my girls to see me be happy and to do what I love. Not just belly dance, but everything! I want to live my life as an example to them. I don't want them to have a mother who sold out and did the safe thing and spent her life desperately snatching little moments of joy. I don't want them to live like that and I will have to be the one who shows them that it doesn't have to be that way.
I said that I was being responsible by putting bread on the table. However, perhaps there were other ways that I was not being responsible. Ways that aren't always thought about when one hears the word responsibility, Perhaps I have been irresponsible by not living my life and raising them to think that this is okay. So, I am now working now and I am sitting at home like a lazy slacker being responsible. How's that?
The Hanged man has a different perspective, he sees the world from upside down.
11 comments:
Interesting perspective. I've always hated it when people told me my aspirations were impractical. My high school guidance counselors tried in earnest to tell me how unsuitable I was to attend college, and tried to get me into vocational training instead (despite the fact that I had good grades, and was a National Merit scholar too). Five years later, I was teaching college classes.
Others' expectations of what you can do are often dependent upon their prejudices, which assess what's possible for people like you. For them, it doesn't matter if you feel like you're contributing the most you can to society. It doesn't matter to them that you'll have to kill something within yourself to comply with their ideal. What matters is that they win the argument, and validate their prejudices.
I don't doubt that someone close pressured you to assume a role that you weren't suited for, for respectability's sake. I also think there's something heroic in discouraging your daughters to let other people define them.
I like the hermit/hangedman spin on this post.
Certainly, wisdom is what we all seek, but sometimes, we need to see the world from upside down, in order to really know how to apply it in our lives.
It's never too late to follow your muse, BBE. It's a good thing that you can, and even better that you are using it to show your daughters that the world is a wide-open road.
Didn't know Thoreau was the Wayne or Garth of his generation. See how time fogs up perceptions? Maybe one day people will look back on your accomplishments and talk of how pivotal it was that you started belly dancing, or taught your daughters to climb up high and look past the horizon.
You never know!
You know I am a huge Tarot buff and I am now studying Runes. Have you had a reading lately? This would be a good time.
I always thought sheep got nervous.
Now I finally see one difference in us, not in character but upbringing. I was supposed to be something--what is that--either a doctor, lawyer, famous something or other or married to the above. Oh, and rich. So far I am a failure in my family's eyes and when I tell people that, they are shocked because by normal standards, I didn't do too badly.
In that sense I echo X-Dell, expectations are based on prejudice but also on what those doing the projecting lack in their lives and they want to live through you. My father said as much.
I came over from Benji's blog. I'm a fan of Thoreau, but then again, I am a hermit. I think there is true courage in removing yourself from the world and a bit of knowledge gained when you enjoy it. Thoreau wasn't a true hermit though. He traveled into the city for parties and whatnot.
One quote along these lines I really love is "Do not fear death, fear the unlived life."
Just thought I'd leave a comment from one Scorpio to another.
X-That's amazing that someone thought that you should go into some thing vocational! I talked to a couple of friends yesterday and they talked bout the same things at their high schools. I guess it is universal. Actually, there are quite a few of you that I have met on blogs that I think of as examples of people who have followed their muse instead of conforming...you being one of them.
Eric-I was just joking about Thoreau. When I found out about the fact that Walden was a little cottage owned by his father and that he lived within walking distance of his parents home, I started making this joke about him. Of course we all know that he was weightier than Garth and Wayne.
Oh, and you are another one who I think about lately who follows his muse.
Enemy-I remember you saying this about your family. I can't imagine you being in one of those fields. You went in the right direction no matter what they might think. You did what was right for you. You are one that I think of too, who went their own way. It's necessary for some of us. We can't help it and thank god!
Beth-Thanks for stopping by! I love Thoreau. And I think that there is a type of person that some people would call a hermit because they refuse to traffic with the acceptable world but they stick to friends who have things in common with them. That's sort of like being a hermit.
I love being a Scorpio.
You know, I love being a Scorpio too. I always feel fortunate that's my sign. Isn't that silly?
Anyhow, I wanted to thank you for the information and personal story you gave me regarding BPD. My husband was diagnosed well over 10 years ago.
I guess what I don't understand is a lot of his changing attitude moment from moment. This is what makes me think, "Is this just bad behavior??" Like watching TV laughing and then snipping at me. Or being angry and yelling, then company showing up (rarity, true, but it's happened) and he'll all of a sudden be the sweetest guy in the world.
I don't want him to suffer, but I don't want to suffer anymore either. Ever since I made the appointment, he's been quiet, better, less intense. I think he's looking forward to it. I think he's feeling worse than I know and I think he knew what he was doing all along too. This is what he said, but that doesn't make sense either.
I'm just typing away here, but I guess if I could understand one thing about this, I wish it were that ... that type of behavior.
*hugs to beth* Be kind to yourself, dearheart. And know that you're being prayed for.
Ya know, I was never good at fitting into anyone's mold....I still struggle at making myself do that, even for a short period of time.
Too much of a rebel, perhaps....or maybe it's all for the fun of it!
(someday's it's a bit of both)
But how WONDERFUL to awaken to a life to LIVE.
I'm all for living it!
Too darn precious---yaknow?
Dance like nobody's watchin'.
Or...if you're me, dance cuz you can--in the kitchen, in the parking lot of Barnes and Noble, in the mall......wooohoooo!
And splash in puddles always!
Yes it's the same old story- fit you into what is in demand on the labour market, or whatever slots they have open/at their disposal.
The system is never really interested in the depth of the person who could offer more to society by being happy.
We live in a world of idiots, bringing us down, but don't stop dreaming.
Someone said: "only in our dreams shall we be free"
Y;-) Paddy
Ha! That does make him the Wayne and Garth of his century.
"Mom! I'm trying to change literary history! can you give me some space? Jeeeezzzzz..."
Maybe if he had an apartment above their carriage house, he would have been the Fonzie of his age.
well, im not commenting now... Im right now reading 'the witch of portobello' which has undertones very simillar to yours.. so ill finish that and tell you...
the truth is I am like you in most of those feelings... and lately Iv lost th spark in my life which is why i feel real miserable....
but on th other side, th questrion is, will anything be able to satsfy us fully? will we just spend our lives chasing happiness... and never reach perfect happiness...
I just wanted to come back to thank you for all the information you've given me lately on bpd. I wish I could talk to your husband. I get what you mean on that, but learning more and being helped so graciously has been the best part of this.
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