Keeping the Dream

So how are you? Time has gone by so fast.

January was to be the month I took some time off. I needed some space, in part to the emotional flashbacks I was receiving through Megan’s suicide, in part to the growing stress at work, and just in part that I needed a break.

My time is spent between trying to homeschool my daughter and work. That’s about it…and trying to maintain some kind of internet presence through my blogs. These writings, the ability to step apart in this way and express my thoughts and feelings are very important to me.

But January was far from restful. Issues concerning work intruded upon my first shift off, and then when my second approached, we had a major fire set by one of our clients at the apartment complex where three of our sites are located, one of which is mine.

So, to make a long story short, I returned to work to be with my clients and now my company is finding itself kicked out of the complex.

So we’re in a major transition now. And I feel like that is reflective of where I am personally. On the one hand I could panic. All the variables are unknown at this time. They tell us that all the employees will work for Bell, however, they don’t know where or in what capacity.

I know my requirements are very specific at this time. I need to be able to continue to homeschool my daughter. I need to be in a area that is within the center of all my driving.

But at the same time, I want change in my life. I want to be able to maintain a regular routine with my daughter. She needs it. It’s crucial to her learning, and I haven’t been able to maintain that, because of the very work hours that enable me to homeschool her in the first place! I work nights and the shift varies from week to week, which enables me to have her, but that weekly variation also creates its own problems.

So I don’t know what to do. And I don’t know what to ask for. That’s not true. I don’t know what solution to ask for, but I do know what I want.

Maybe that’s where faith comes in. When you can’t see how it could work…not with what you know, then that is the time to leap beyond what you know and trust that something, someone will catch you…or at least meet you. That it will work out.

I can do that.

In my post, Why Am I Here?, this past Sunday, I talked about Sylvia Plath’s writing about indecision, and the fear that surrounded her.

Her words reveal not only the fear over making choices, but about the fear of loss. Every choice wasn’t seen as embracing something as much as relinquishing something else. It’s symptomatic, I think, of a society that gives you the impression that you can…and should have it all.

That’s the first lie I had to give up.

It’s easy to see why I should have believed it. What’s more seductive to believe you can have it all, when society says, as female, you can’t have any of it - other than what’s prescribed in a very narrow band of choices? I realize many of my choices were knee jerk reactions to what I felt was constricting me.

Deciding to be something means deciding not to be everything else not chosen. If that’s what you focus on, every choice is about losing.

But I wonder what our fear of loss is really a blanket for?

There’s more to our inability to make a decision other than being paralyzed by too many choices. Because I’m beginning to see that depth is, also, a matter of choice.

Indecision protects us from diving in deep. In our hesitation to even get our feet wet, we spare ourselves the unknown places of the deeper section of the water. We run back and forth from one body of water to the next contemplating which one we want to swim in, and all the time we are safe on the shore, fooling ourselves into thinking we’re trying to choose, when we’re actually trying to avoid.

Avoid what? Intimacy, for one, either with another person or with ourselves.

It’s the same thing isn’t it? The person who’s afraid to commit to a monogamous relationship or pick a field of interest to develop their skills and talents. It’s all about holding out, because there might be something/someone better.

But the fact is, we don’t want to give in to anything or anyone. It’s not a journey or a race, not even a rat one. It’s a game of dodge ball we play, and indecision is the excuse we use to keep us in that game and out of the very real world of depth with its demand and risk of courage and vulnerability.

Now that’s the million dollar question…or in today’s economy, trillion dollar.

Next to, “Who am I?”, “What is our purpose?” is the big question.

I remember in my youth, as early as preschool, and a good deal into my adult years, pondering that question. I still ask it every now and then today…but the answer I seek is decidedly different in nature and less urgent these days.

There was an excerpt from Sylvia Plath’s, “The Bell Jar” that struck me to the core when I first read it. Chapter 7 (formatting changed for ease of blog reading):

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.

One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

I was afraid I’d be like that, and in some ways I was. But I did manage to find a way to develop certain skills in specific areas, some through choice, others through necessity, and found a niche for myself despite my indecisions.

I’ve stopped looking at life as it were some big multiple choice test with right and wrong answers, and made friends with my imagination that can dream up of more options that I will ever have enough years to live.

When I was younger, the question of my purpose encompassed not only my place in the universe, but what career choices I should make. But I see now they are only extraneous to the real issue. When you understand the question, then everything else attached to it becomes less important, in and of themselves, because you see they are only in service of something greater.

To me, the answer to the question “Why am I here?” is no longer a cornucopia of choices. There’s only one answer - To love.

Don’t roll your eyes, it’s true.

When I remember this, every encounter becomes an opportunity to find some way to express love. It may be opening one’s heart or closing a door. It may be extending yourself or drawing your boundaries, but everything - everything is an opportunity, a request to love.

This really makes a big difference to me, because instead of becoming frantic over losing time to “get it right”, get the training, make the career moves, locate to the right place, each and every present moment is just where I need to be to live my life’s purpose. I don’t need a degree or a new job to do that.

From that perspective, I can make whatever choices I need to make to affect the shape and form of my reality. Even if the details of my life are not what I want, at the moment, the heart of it can be true to its purpose - my life’s purpose. There is no waste, just a journey where love is expressed through one form or another.

And that’s what will remain after we “retire”…from our jobs or our lives.

Hey, good morning…

Yesterday, I read a post by Ronni Bennett, “On Employment and Retirement Fears“. There were a number of comments, including mine, sharing where we were financially at the later stages of our lives. Most of us who commented that day did not expect to be where we are today, financially.

And I thought about not only the circumstances that led me here, but to the choices I’ve made regarding money over the years.

It’s hard for me to charge for my services. Most of my speaking and singing engagements have been free. I devote huge amounts of time doing things I get no financial compensation for. It would be fine if I were independently wealthy or was supported by someone, but the person I have to rely on that for is me.

In my last comment on Ronni’s post, I wrote:

You know, it’s bad enough when society discriminates against you. It’s worse when you do it to yourself.

Now, I know there will always be places and times I’m moved to share my music without charging a fee, because it will just be the right thing to do. BUT that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be a better business person, because THAT’S the right thing to do, as well.

Because if the volunteer doesn’t take care of herself, she may very well find that in the end, no one else will either.

So many of us older people, and especially women who find themselves divorced at this stage of their lives, find ourselves barely making ends meet. We don’t even want to think about what will happen if our health fails or some major event happens that we can’t cover. We just make it from current paycheck to current paycheck.

I find myself needing to step back and reassess my situation. I love what I do in this virtual world. I love connecting with people and offering help. I love writing articles that may inspire and receiving email. I’d love to get more interaction on this blog, but the occasional email I get from someone who says my writing and music has made a difference to them means the world to me.

But that doesn’t put food on my table or enable me to care for my child or myself in my old age.

So, how do I do this? How do I find balance between service and…well, service to me?

As a woman, I’m so geared to nurturing and being there for others. I don’t want to drop that. I just need to find a way to balance it. Last night I spent several hours, helping two people I love very much get their affairs in order so they could help one another in their living situation and be more financially stable.

As I was driving home in my car, realizing the heater had just stopped working and facing the upcoming winter now with the prospect of no heat in my car, I thought, “What about me?”

And I realize that’s a question I really need to answer.

Well, I hope this day will be a blessing to you…and that as you go about your way making the world a little better place, you will take the time to make your personal world a little cozier and secure for you.

Talk to you later.
Demian