I was reading an article in Glamour last night called "Are You Following Your Dreams?". It inspired alot of thoughts in me that I was too tired last night to write and that I forget tonight. One thing did stand out - "So why is it then, that adulthood feels so often like a betrayal of our younger selves?".
I know EXACTLY how she feels! I betray myself daily. Lately, I've been fighting the urge to chuck everything, move to Florida and try living out THAT part of my dreams. #1 - I don't do well with uncontrolled, spontaneous stuff. #2 - I LOVE my job! :)
I've been yearning for warm weather and a beach atmosphere life. I've been thinking more and more about Hermosa Beach. I'm terribly jealous of my 130 pound wrestler who's moving there upon graduation. It's the weirdest pull from somewhere deep inside toward these things. As the writer says, "In the early part of my career, when I'd be sitting in a subcommittee meeting on Capitol Hill, listening to a congressman drone on and on about postage stamps, I'd sometimes sense my childhood self glaring at me from the back of the room: This was the best you could do?" Now, I don't feel these things everyday in my job, it's the moment I walk out the door to go home. Especially on a day like today, when it's 60 here and I just wanna head from work to the beach. Only it's an hour away...not my preferred 5 minutes.
I know this is the part of my life unfulfilled. The part that needs something to fill it up. The part that's empty and wanting and yearning for something more than an hour at the gym and home to watch CSI with my cat, parents in various places around the same house. I've been looking at houses, but will that do it? Will that suffice or does the desire, need, want, yearn go deeper.
I've learned alot about myself in the last few years. For those who've seen The Runaway Bride, you'll get this part - I've figured out what kind of eggs I like. :) for those who haven't, I've thought of things I'd never given much heed to previously. Neil's now-wife once said, "Girls dream and plan their wedding from the time they are little girls.". It sounded so funny, because I hadn't. Not once. I knew I'd have one, never thought to plan it before it would happen. I know now. I also know my favorite apple, what I want in a partner/spouse, what I'll compromise and what I won't, what I'll change for another and what I won't and, most important, that saying good-bye won't kill me and neither will being "high-maintainance". I feel I'm more ready to settle down, settle in and be. There's a whole list of things I want to do, learn, see or experience.
What the writer of this article didn't cover is that my younger self has nothing on my older one. My younger self didn't plan ahead too much, didn't really feel passionately about things, wants, desires. The older me does and I'm sure as hell not going to betray that one. The younger one yearns for the past, for ideals and refuses to think we've grown up and these have passed us by. The older me knows we don't have to give them up just because we've grown up. Maybe THAT'S the adult betrayal. And yes, it's the best I've got. Thank God!
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