streaming meanderings

Reality can hit hard, like a slap in the face.

I want it all, so I let go of what I have, for lack of wanting it enough. Regretfully watching as it slips through my fingers. Everything, in slow motion, tumbles to the hard and unforgiving floor. Shattering into a million pieces that fly at me and pierce my skin. Then, I bleed. I bleed muddy water that pools around my ankles, and my feet are hidden in the chocolate brown puddle. A greasy film swirls on the surface.

There’s no point in moving from this spot, not as long as this damn rain keeps falling…

The view from my window was black. So, this was what they called space... I thought of the space between my toes, the space between my seat and the next seat, and it seemed strange how that same word could also mean this unfathomable depth of inky blackness into which I couldn’t stop looking. It had only been 3 or 4 hours since the shuttle had left earth, but I knew that at the speed we were traveling, we were probably already light years away. I gripped the arm of my seat at the thought, needing to grasp something tangible to anchor me in this vast space. With the scenery unchanging, I found myself wondering why I had come on this intergalactic cruise. The man sitting next to me was snoring, softly, and with the suggestion of sleep, I dozed off.

An unexpected reddish glow creeping under my eyelids woke me some time later. I looked out my window to see a large, glowing red ball in the distance, probably a star of some kind, but finally something else to look at. I was peering out to see what else might be out there besides the star, when I realized we were actually orbiting one of the star’s planets. Then suddenly, with no warning or even a visible approach, we had swooped down and landed inside of what seemed to be a large space station. I exchanged a startled look with some of the other passengers. Where were we? How could our tourist cruise shuttle have even come far enough in such a short time to have arrived on a planet, much less one that seemed so prepared to receive interplanetary travelers?

I could hear the engines powering down, as the door to the shuttle opened. A moment later, the other passengers and I found ourselves looking at a man smiling at us from the doorway. He greeted us calmly,

“Welcome to Gliese 581c. Please carefully disembark and go through the decontamination seal to the station. Someone will be waiting inside to direct you to the passenger lounge where you can wait while your shuttle refuels.”

In a stunned silence, we quietly filed out of the shuttle and down the ramp. I found myself looking all around, wondering if this could really be happening. Where were we, and how could this place exist?

I had a strange dream about my sister's boss last night and found that this morning I had difficulty waking. Most of the details of the dream faded with the dawn, but the mood haunted me all day long...

Today’s challenge is this: How do I raise my daughters to have dreams and ideals, while still preparing them for disappointment and loneliness? I know my parents never prepared me for the loneliness, but it came.

I look at my life and think of the compromises I’ve made, in order to make certain I could have some of the things I wanted. You can’t have everything… or can you? Have I been weak, or is the ability to adjust my expectations a strength? I don’t have the answer to that. Many of my single girlfriends are in their mid to late thirties and still waiting to meet Mr. Right and settled down. Have they been more true to themselves, or are they being unrealistic? Did they grow up with too many fairytales of Prince Charming and “happily ever after”? Will their perseverance be rewarded, while I enviously watch from the sidelines? I don’t know. Sometimes, when they tell me how they are lonely, I want them to know that I am too. Then, there are times when they talk about the children and the security they long for – for which I am often shamefully ungrateful - and I wonder if I should warn them that they may need to lower some of their expectations, before their time runs out.

So, who is happier, the lonely housewife or the independent woman? I have people who will keep me company and care for me if I live to be old and decrepit. My children and my husband (should I predecease him) will mourn for me and remember me after I am gone. However, a single woman still has her dreams and the freedom to pursue those dreams unhindered. She still has hope that someday she will have this great love, that she will connect with someone and truly be seen. And who knows, she might be rewarded for holding out and not compromising, or she could reprioritize and end up like me.

Still, all I have to do is look at my little girls to know that, regrets and loneliness aside, I wouldn’t have it any other way. For them, I would compromise, but they deserve to have it all.

Lately, the kids have taken to capturing bugs or caterpillars and putting them in jars and containers. They get all excited about their find and plan, with the best of intentions, to care for and observe them. "Just remember to let them go..." I usually remind them, knowing that with the stereotypically short lived attention span of children, they will soon forget. So, I keep finding dead bugs, long forgotten and trapped in tiny prisons, shriveled and grasping the crumbling leaves and twigs that had once been provided for what was only supposed to be a temporary habitat. I can only imagine the fear and then resignation that might have gripped those tiny hearts, had they the ability to reason, when they first saw those chubby hands reaching toward them. All 4, 6 or 8 legs wiggling and moving as fast as they could - those with wings standing a much better chance or escape - with the warnings of humans that their mothers surely whispered to them when they were only just eggs or larvae echoing in their ears.

I think of all of this when the kids come running up to me, with cries of, "Look, Mommy, look what we found!" Then, I make a mental note to try to remember to release the scampering helpless critters after bedtime. The least I can do is allow them to live their very short lives in peace, where they will likely be dinner for some other bigger bug or bird, but they will be free.

There are so many other things I should be doing right now. I should be folding that pile of laundry that has taken over the couch. I should be filing this sloppy stack of papers sitting in front of me on my desk, threatening to topple at any moment. My toilet has a gross brown ring around the inside of the bowl that has been growing over the past week, and I never let it get like that, but I don’t want to be scrubbing my toilet bowl. Not right now. Right now, I have a quiet moment all to myself, and I want to keep it all for myself. And, why is it that I find myself sitting her internally making excuses and defending myself? No one is breathing down my neck, nagging me to hurry up and get these things done. Nobody cares as much as I do. Nobody cares… but let’s not turn that into a pity party, please, let’s not go there today.

So, here I am, sitting here enjoying my moment, trying so hard not to think about those things I should be getting done. Damn those things! Why can’t I be like those creative types that let the mold grow on the dirty dishes in the sink, that rarely shower or change their clothes? I want to be so completely immersed in my creative process, so captivated by the thoughts swirling around my brain and tumbling out of my head that I don’t care about anything else. I want to sit here and type words, until my hair is hanging in greasy tangles from raking my hands through it and my eyes are so red rimmed and tired that I have to keep rubbing them to keep the letters from blurring in front of me. And still, I won’t be able to stop, I will be like a madwoman, with words pouring forth from my fingers, taking on a life all their own. Sometimes, I want to be this person, so bad…

But, I am not. I can’t help my eyes from flitting to bottom of the screen to check the time. I have, maybe, another hour before my daughter wakes up from her nap, and I really should use this time to get things done. Practical things that need to get done so that we can function. I never thought I would become this person. Never in all my schoolgirl daydreams did I think I would be this normal, this average, this ordinary. Why is this so hard for me to accept? I ask myself a few times a week, if this is who I am and this is what I have, can I be content?

Pop-up adds on the internet are the biggest pain in the ass. There you are, just trying to read or get something else accomplished, and then suddenly, POP! a little box jumps onto your computer screen and screams, LOOK AT ME, LOOKE AT ME, LOOK AT ME. Let me guess, I'm the 1,263,452,301 visitor to this sight and that means I win something? Great. Now all I have to do is click on this button and read this add, oh, and fill in this survey... What's that? There's another page of special offers I just have to see? Ok, well, I mean if I just have to look for a minute. A free I-Pod would be cool. Yeah, "free". And the boxes open one, after the other, until finally they ask for your credit card number. Hmmm, now why would they need a credit card number if it is free? Oh, and hopefully you didn't put your real email address in all those little forms and surveys you filled out... because the next time you check email, you will have 10 messages from god knows where with more "free" offers and "great deals".

So, now it's an hour later, and I can't remember what I was doing before all this started. In the last hour, I think I entered a poetry contest... I might be getting some coupons in the mail for chocolate chips... that vacation offer was kind of tempting... but I stopped myself before I slid all the way down the slippery slope of free offers. Man, they ask for my credit card number, and I have to draw the line. No free IPod today. Bummer.

Sometimes there is just too much going on to write about. Especially when most of it is internal activity. What you think. What you feel. The transition of perspective and belief.

I want…
It changes every week. I want to be a rockstar. I want to be super-mom. I want to be famous. I want to be rich. I want to sleep. I want world peace. I want to run away. I want to be happy. I want simplicity. I want to sit quietly. I want to party. I want love. I want to be alone. I want everything. I don’t want anything. We never want the same thing, but we always want the same things.

We are nothing if not creatures of extreme habit. It makes us comfortable. Consistency. Then, some of us consistently want change, maybe because change has become a habit. However, we still crave consistency, and so we are never truly comfortable with the changes. Yet, we don’t know how to change.

I ask myself daily, what do I want? The answer is always changing.

I want to rock. Not to necessarily be a rock star, but I want to be able to stand up on a stage and play an electric guitar. I want to eat the mic and flail around on stage. To moan and wail song lyrics with an energy that pulses and inspires. I want to write songs like Patti Smith in the 70's, with Gwen Stefani's energy and girlyness, while channeling a little of the raw and wild sexuality of Courtney Love. Tired of tamely strumming acoustic guitar, melodic with melancholy and love. I don't want to sit on a stool and croon. Give me throbbing bass and a driving beat. Dirty hair and tattoos. I wanna rock.

I don't have room for clutter in my life. There is just too much stuff all around. I love shopping as much as, if not more than, the next woman. But, where they collect, I replace and update. "Out with the old and in with the new!" New acquisitions give me an excuse to dispose of the extra, the superfluous, the substitutions for what I really want. I have learned not to hold too tightly to anything. Loss is expected, it is a part of everything. Look at nature -, always from birth, to growth, to death: loss. Or life - birth, growth, independence, dependence, then death: loss. Love - birth, growth, death: loss. Push me, and I give, I am yielding. It is the natural cycle. Resistance is futile. I can always start over again.