| I am a woman without purpose, direction, or aspirations. I have roles, yes. Some I chose, some I enjoy, but most I just fell into. My life just seems to be a series of events that just keep happening to me while I'm watching, but not directing. Inexorable in that they just keep leading on and on, but without a clear goal defined. Except the general ones - to be happy, to get out of debt, to successfully guide the kids through their adolescenthood and out on their own. Mostly to just be happy. I've never really had a plan. Forward-looking as I like to think I am, I'm not, really. I have a five year plan to get out of debt. But I have no idea what I'll be doing career-wise in the next six months. I'm going to school to get a Bachelor's degree, but beyond that I have no idea what good it's going to do me. I plan menus for weeks in advance, and set aside money every month for the months-distant vacation/Christmas/car. But where will *I*, personally, be two years from now? Five? Ten? Ah, that hated job application question. "Where do you see yourself five years from now?" I have these vague notions of being debt free, being able to travel around the country with Calvin, being able to travel *outside* the country with Calvin, buying some land up North and putting a cabin on it. But I don't think in terms of personal accomplishments. My "self improvement" plans are what come closest - get in shape, take better care of myself, and finally consent to get my damned wisdom teeth pulled. Hardly noble, noteworthy aspirations. I've never been career-oriented, or competitive, or driven in any way to be "successful" in the terms held by the world today. I've always wanted to be creative, to be considered intelligent, and to be considered a good friend. Internal goals, not external goals. Unnoticed to the outsider, but appreciated deeply by those who know me best. On my confident days, I have dim, vague notions of being a writer. In the sense that I'd publish, I'd get paid, I'd have deadlines. Yet my forays into fiction have been somewhat dismal, and I know I lack the discipline to write professionally. I have lots of beginnings, very few middles and ends. Sometimes a sentence will jump out at me, pop into my head, and I'll think "I could write a story based on that one sentence." No, what I can do is write the first chapter, or even two or three. Then my creativity fizzles out, and my characters end up like I am now - undirected, mulling around and blinking up a their creator, asking "Well, what now?" I can write little blurbs about my thoughts, my life... but I can't spin a tale, or follow a plot line, or develop dialogue. I'm no Robert Fulgum, or Erma Bombeck. Neither am I a Mary Stewart or Marion Zimmer Bradley. I enjoy them, as a fan, a reader. I envy them, as an aspiring writer who "wishes I could write like that". I've been told to "write about what you know". I know a little bit about a bunch of things, but not a lot about one or two things that would allow me to develop a niche, or go in a specific direction. Perhaps I just lack the maturity to pull it off. Perhaps more life experience will allow me to see the web, the connection, the mirrors-within-mirrors. And then, then my thoughts will gain cohesion, the connections between events will become clear, and I can pull all my life experience together and channel it in such a way as to write provocatively, and pull the reader into my created world. Until then, I thrash my experimentation out here. This particular media has many roles, too - some I choose it to have, some that just occur by nature of my writing style, needs, and habits. Sometimes I rant, and sometimes I tell stories. Sometimes I just rely on the old adage that "a picture is worth a thousand words". Busy with my camera, lazy with my writing. Sometimes I write to be meaningful and profound. Sometimes I write just to have written something. Sometimes I take my time and think, other times I rush through an entry slap-dash and haphazard. It's a funny combination of the need to write, the slight sensorship I allow myself to hold personal details in private, the slight obligation I feel toward my readers to be entertaining/enlightening/at least not boring, and the desire to better my technique and hone my skills. How far do I want that to go? Do I take classes, writing workshops, join a club for short story writers? Will that develop my writing, or will it just end up making me feel too structured and stilted to be creative? Do I lack discipline, or do I have too much of it? Is there such a thing as too much discipline? Do I need assignments and deadlines to keep me going? No, I know that last one isn't true, or else I wouldn't have maintained a journal, in some form or another, my entire life. I do work well under pressure, but I don't need it. What I need is time, space, peaceful surroundings, and the ability to be inspired. If I were to write a book, that is. My current surroundings and lifestyle are perfect for where I'm at right now. "From chaos, creativity is born." Paraphrased to suit. It keeps my juices flowing, this pace I keep. Conversations spark thoughts, which spark entries. My life as it is right now is not suited for the steady, linear pace of book writing. And I don't think I'm ready for that, anyway. Short, quick stuff, like commercials. Heh. These entries are the commercials that pepper my days and create intermissions for my life? No, I don't think that's right. Interesting thought, though. Often, as I am right now, I'm grateful that I am the way I am. Documenting my life, sometimes through disjointed thoughts, other times through descriptions of events. When I get further along the path, perhaps I will be able to look back and see the pattern emerge, like one of those multi-colored prints from which, when stared at long enough, a 3-D picture emerges. It's all in a trick of the eyes, and once seen, it's hard to imagine it was ever missed. My life. A trick of the eye. But there's a pattern here, somewhere. |
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Your Mission, should you choose to accept it...
Tell me what your theme song is, and why. For you non-Ally McBeal watchers, a theme song is that one song that perfectly suits your spirit. Every time you hear it, it uplifts you. It may or may not describe you, your life, or your situation. It's just *your* song, for whatever reason. Don't be shy. I won't laugh at you. Even if it's Michael Boulton. ~shudder~
Results From Yesterday's Mission I resolve to get my damned wisdom teeth removed in 2001. There. That's hardly your run-of-the-mill resolution. Boring, yes. But not run-of-the-mill. I grabbed the design idea for the box thingy from Anna.
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