I know less than I thought I knew (or thought I would know) by today, January 1, 2007.
I am not going to wish you a Happy 2007, because you’ve already seen that sentiment written in glitter and sequins and fireworks this season, and I’d rather give you something else as a token of affection. You come here and you read what I write, and I marvel at that. Daily. You give up time to decipher what’s going on here in a house—and a head—you might never get to see up close. You take the time to read between the lines, to wonder about the life of someone you haven’t met (many of you) or to find out more about your friend who suffers strange intermittent phone phobia (many of you). Thank you. I value you so much and yet I don’t even know what your coffee mugs look like (many of you) or what you’re thinking (most of you) on this first day of the New Year.
I’m not going to wish you a Hopeful 2007, either. A wise friend said to me this past year, “I don’t like the word hope. I think it’s one of those words that keeps you from being exactly where you are.”
At first I thought that was a pretty crummy, pretty pessimistic way of thinking. I’ve since changed my mind. I won’t go so far as to say that hope is an ugly word—it could never be that, no more than love or baby or butterfly or scalp massage ever could— but it does make living in the here-and-now more difficult than I want it to be, or can afford it to be anymore.
2007: Goals unachieved, dreams unfulfilled, life audaciously imperfect. I’m tired. True, I perk up when I am surrounded with wonderful people (which is often), but the truth is, I’m weary of wanting (different circumstances) and waiting (for things I can’t change to change) and wondering. You?
This is what I’m wondering today: What happens if I open the back door and let Wanting go? For good? Just let it wander out into the neighborhood, wish it godspeed, let the beast find itself a new home? A better home with better owners who can afford to feed it better?
I’m tired of the timeline that I told myself I did not have, the one that keeps slithering out from under the bed and coiling around my esophagus when I’m trying to sleep. My stamina for 3am-timeline-wrestling is waning.
I was helping my mom unpack some remaining boxes of papers at her apartment a few days ago, when I came across a note from my late Great-aunt Gert. She’d written it to my mom in the early 1980s. Along with the usual family news, my great-aunt had added, “Loved seeing you all again, especially Jenn. I’d bet anything she’s going to be a famous actress someday! She’s got the face and the personality for it!”
My sweet mother, God love her, had taken a yellow highlighter to the compliment, obviously thrilled that my great-aunt saw what she saw (and hoped) for me: a Happy Big Future, with lots of glitter and sequins and fireworks and red carpet treatment.
I started to cry again.
I pretty much ruled out fame for myself when I stopped wearing my retainer. Crooked bottom teeth do not a Hollywood career make.
I don’t know what makes a Hollywood career, really. I think living in Hollywood would be a good start, but I don’t want to live in Hollywood. I wouldn’t mind having my teeth fixed, but I don’t want to be anywhere but where we are. Location-wise.
I am working on feeling the same way, non-location-wise. That part has always been harder. I have always known, location-wise, when I am in the right place and when I am in the wrong place. This is definitely the right place to live.
But as for wanting to be right here, that more elusive here…that’s more slippery.
You?
I know I get more comments when I go blonde and shake my booty, so please pretend I’m shaking my booty and my blonde chopped bob as I write this to you. And write back. Let me know what you are no longer wishing for, what you’ve let go of, what you’ve bid farewell to. Ignore all of those prepositions at the end of those clauses. Are you here, or more there?
I’ll toast you this way: Here’s to a Here-We-Are 2007.
My only resolution? I plan to do less trail-blazing, and more shut-up-and-follow-ing.
I found a couple of guides I’m crazy about, too. And they seem to know the way better than I do. Funny, that.
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thank you for this, as I too realize there are hopes I need to let go of, that waste my time and my energy. I am no longer wishing to be someone other than me.
Letting go of what we expected from our lives when we were young is so hard, I agree. On this New Year’s Day, I am wrestling with the fact that this year I turn 40. And the first thought that comes to my mind is this: “How has all this time gone by with nothing to show for it?” But if I wait a minute I remember that I have done something, it just isn’t at all what I expected to do. I didn’t know that I would stay home when my kids were born. I didn’t know that I’d still be at home with them nine years later. I didn’t know that my PhD would go virtually unused. I didn’t know that I’d be living in a small town near no major city when I am from The City (you know, The City). And I didn’t think that I’d be married to someone who is a great father but maybe not the soulmate I wanted or thought I should have. Is it OK? Yeah, it is. Will it always be? I don’t know, but I’m trying not to worry about it. I wish the same for you, Jenn.
This, in true BEA&W style, is awesome. You wanna know what? THIS is the stuff I come here for. (Ignore that preposition!) I come here for both the blonde bob booty shakin’ and the ghosty stories, and the deep thoughts of yours that make me sit down, take a breath, and read through more than once. You say things that touch me deep, that make me think, make me laugh, and make me wish I also lived in the Berkshires, so you and I could go on a coffee playdate and talk about books we’ve read and funny things our kids have done and our husbands’ quirks. I think it would be fun to know you in real life.
Here’s why I totally loved this post. 2006 sucked for me. From my husband’s traveling to a mysterious health problem that may or may not be resolved with the removal of my gallbladder next week to financial worries and a lot of woe I totally immersed myself in over where I’m NOT in my life, it was a hard ass year. Much of it, I realize now, because of my state of mind. The idea of letting go of that want? Scary but spine-tingling exciting at the potential freedom. Why can’t I just happily go on visiting my friends, doing well at my job, loving my family, and writing my novel for the sake of writing a story without putting so much on myself in the way of expectation for the novel? The only answer really is that I can live that way, but I have to choose to. (Ignore that preposition.) I’ve been pondering this very thing over the last few days, and while I was considering putting it into a blog post (which I think I have…in your comments section) I doubt I could have said it with your eloquence. I may still try. But whatever happens, this is the year I try to let go of all the disappointment that I’m not published yet and revel in the life I DO have. Because even if it’s not where I saw myself while I was a daydreaming teenager, I’ve still worked hard for what I have. I need to stop overlooking it for the greener grass and start appreciating it. Your post said all this straight to a part of me that needed to hear (read) it. So thank you.
Have a Hear-We-Are 2007. Mucho love to you.
Oh Jenn! I just wrote you a long response but it seems to have disappeared. Perhaps it will appear later…
Keri
Nope – it is not showing up… so here is the abbreviated (or less thoughtful) version.
1. I have given up my wanting for a different place to live. By that I mean anything but the state of Oklahoma. It was incredibly depressing to constantly want a knew home – so much so that I considered giving up much what makes my life emothionally rich, just to live elsewhere. I have made peace with Oklahoma now. I don’t have to love it, but I don’t have to plot my way out every day.
2. I have given up a need to be the perfect mother that my mother was, at least in my memory. And I have even had to give up her perfect memory for the sake of my sanity. Not that gave up her memory – but that I had to give up the image of perfection I had for her. I could never life up to that… and it was slowing killing me. That is no exaggeration.
There is a lot I have not given up wanting. But I do know for a fact that kicking want out of my life has improved it. It helps me see more clearly what I do have.
And while there is still so much I want for my home (enough bedrooms for my children, a bathroom sink that is not rusting through, to name a few), there is one thing that helps me feel that want less frequently… spend as little time as possible at home!
And Sarah, I, like you, am a mother with a PhD that is not being used. Glad to know I am not the only one out there. Wonder if my kids will ever even know what mommy was like before she had them!
And if this post shows up twice, my apologies to all who read it.
I think this is a very wise post. I met an educator named Nancy Schlossberg at a conference years ago and she spoke about the “non-events” in our lives – those things we want or expect to happen at a certain point along the way and then don’t.
She believes that the non-events are what make us who we are, are the shapers of our here and nows.
Keep living the questions, Jenn. I love you.
Mom PS Thanks for a very beautiful New Year’s Day :>)
Keri, yours was also a beautiful and wise post. I love you too, sweetie! Read some of Nancy Schlossberg’s books and those non-events which happen to us all.
I love this. I, too, am too tired for wrestling time. Is it the right time to say goodbye to the Wanting, or is it the right time for Getting?
Wish I knew. I’m looking forward to reading you in 2007.
Letting go of the wanting can be a long, slow process. It’s a long ribbon that’s wound around your soul, so you have to give it time to snake it’s way out your door. I think I see the tail end of it at my house, and I stopped wrestling with the head a year ago. I’ve had more peace in my life since then. it’s been good. I wish you luck in your letting go.
I’m finally feeling at home in Hawaii after a bit over a year. I can watch our screen saver slide show ( that’s a lot of s’s!) and just feel the memories of our old life without the big black hole of want. Those pictures of the house where my son learned to walk and talk and make snowmen used to hurt so damn much, but now I can smile and enjoy and even see the bright side (“oh, I hated that linoleum, how nice to not have linoleum anymore”, “one thing about a smaller house, less to clean”). I still miss Colorado and our old life, but our new life gallops along and now this is the house where my daughter learned to crawl and walk and play with bubbles (no snowmen here). It’s her birthplace and our home and I feel myself starting to not care so much about getting back to the mainland. When I start to crave Poi I’ll know I’m a lifer.
I was so eager to let go of 2006. It was a year filled with sadness and loss for me. I was so ready to shed it like a dirty pair of jeans with a big rip in the inseam. Then, while I was in Pittsburgh for Christmas (after our email exchange, Jenn), I got a call that my mother was in ICU. I flew to KC where I have been in limbo since. I spent New Year’s alone and 2007 started looking a little less bright and shiny. Your post does make me wonder if perhaps I put just a little too much pressure on 2007 and it cracked already.
For me, place is easy and without doubt. I live in Minneapolis surrounded by a close group of friends that I know I could not live without. I have an incredible partner and great kids. I know that I am loved. I never really got that whole concept of roots until I moved to Minneapolis and wound up with these amazing people in my life. I know that I am lucky.
For me, the internal struggle is about all of the rest. Should I be doing more? Shouldn’t my life have some greater meaning or purpose? I don’t know. During my second year at Grinnell, my father died. His last words to me were, “Vikki, you are going to do amazing things in the world.” Isn’t that great? Why couldn’t he have said, “Vikki, you are going to go to the grocery store and buy broccoli”. I think I might have a lot less angst if he had.
You know, I’ve noticed a pattern. Not with you, per se, but with women in general. Whenever one of us is struggling – you know, that mom-work-wife-house-etc. struggle, that one – whenever one of us is going down in the whirlpool of it all, the others seem to always give this advice: lower your expectations. Lower them, lower them.
But all our lives we’re taught to REACH FOR THE STARS.
You know, fuck the stars. I’m tired of disappointment.
I think in 2007 I’m reaching MUCH more closely to home, much more realistically.
I will NOT lose 75 pounds. It won’t happen. I will NOT exercise 5 days a week. I will NOT keep a tidy house. I will NOT stop internetting at work. Those things are too much star-reaching for me.
So I’m lowering my expectations. I don’t know if it’s the same as letting WANT wander out the backdoor or not. But what I’m reaching for are things that are imminently REACHABLE.
My big thing for 2007, I think, is FRIENDS. Real life flesh and blood friends (not that you wonderful virtual friends don’t make me happy, it’s just hard to do body-shots with you, ya know?) The people who are friend-like are already in place and all I need to do is a little care and maintenance, some cultivation of it all, a few invites, phone calls, whatever. And since I won’t be busy losing 75 pounds and cleaning my house, I think I can do that.
And I think it will make me really happy.
So maybe hope isn’t a 4-letter word. I know HOPELESS feels like a bad word, but maybe if you put it like this — HOPE, LESS then it’s better. Still hope, but hope a little less. Instead of reaching for the stars, maybe reach only for the top shelf of your cupboard right now. I think that’s my plan.
What a lovely post. I am actually working on the opposite thing, in a way. I am hoping this will be the year that I quit my job and go back to freelancing, and I am a bit terrified. I have gotten very good at being Here, in a sort of horse-with-blinders-on manner, rather than the contented-sigh sort of manner I imagine you are shooting for. (For which I imagine you are shooting? Bah.) I am less content than prone to thinking of this part of my life as practice, and I would rather not do that anymore.
So I have given up on some things–of thinking of my life as not-yet-begun, as something that will start in the future, when I have a baby or am in grad school or have lost twenty pounds and gained several inches of height.
I wish you every luck at being where you are in 2007, and thank you for writing.
God Jenn. This post is like a big, lovingly hand-crafted wooden sign, festively decorated with stenciled flowers and bright primary colors, which reads “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here”.
I’ve got a mental image of you shaking your thong-booty with your head in the oven. Ahhh, the gallows humor of parenthood.
Being thankful for one’s blessings is good and all, don’t get me wrong. Thing is, being happy with what you have doesn’t preclude you from trying to make things better. Framing it like an either/or is a false choice, and conceals the real substance of the decision. You’re not giving up hope for the future to get happiness in the here and now, you’re just giving up hope for the future. Happiness in the here and now could be yours either way.
Blogs are so much cheaper than therapy, aren’t they?
Sadly, hope springs eternal so there really is no chance to kill it dead, but perhaps the best one can do is to hope that our hopes fade.
Hope for a day when achieving goals and objectives seems trite.
Hope for a time when simply making through the day is a goal the fully satisfies (like a Snickers™ bar)
Hope that as time passes us by we have occasion to laugh and smile at the absurdity of it all.
Hope for some quiet time. Our minds paradoxically seem to relish the thought of emptiness.
Above all else don’t be afraid to let go. It’s easier when you realize that you never were actually holding onto anything anyways.
1/1/07 is just an arbitrary date on an arbitrary calendar in which all dates are without meaning…
My problem with getting rid of all my wants is finding something to fill the empty space when they are gone.
If I stopped wanting all the things I wanted I suspect I would find myself curled up on the sofa mindlessly staring at a very blank space on the wall…
Joseph Campbell put it quite nicely. He thought, “We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us”.
Easier said than done, but well worth a try.
A big hello to Jenn and Mater.
i didnt read any of the other posts – there are tears in my eyes- sometimes you shoot an arrow right into my soul with your writing and thoughts – how did you know that is what i am struggling with too? letting go of “who i am supposed to be” is the HARDEST thing in the world.
this past year has been major change for me – i left a situation that was VERY VERY bad and with it all the people (and some very bad ones) that had been my life for over 10 years – and moved and grew a garden and created a home and reconnected with my baby sister and her family – and my nephew.
its been a hard lonely year and it was one of those milestone birthdays too (and yes, i am still vain enough not to say which one). this new year i face with lots of questions and the only promise to myself – to be true to my talents and dreams.
financially and professionally its very scary – but the other situation had made me psychically ill and then physically and finally i listened.
thanks for sharing where you are – it gives me courage to keep showing up and just figure out each day one at a time.
Here. Slippery, or sticky, depending upon the direction of a day’s wind. I find myself humbled each day by the frailty of any control over our time. My daughter’s hand in mine, the riddle of its squeeze and you’ll shatter it fragility and the “I’m doing this because I know you love it” wisdom of someone far older than 2, makes me realize how little time and energy I can afford to expend on being anywhere but here. The lines on my face, the pages of my unused planner, the blur of holidays are a building whistle of the whizzing by of time. Day to day I struggle with being in today rather than yesterday or tomorrow. I do not necessarily become happier or more satisfied with where I am, but rather understand more keenly the importance of giving myself to the current. We each have a melody to our lives, yours does tend to the bittersweet, but is no less beautiful or significant. The one thing I am able to hold on to is the ultimately perfect chemistry of the gifts and burdens in my life. Your writing has melted in to the mix of gifts in my life, and for that I thank you.
I hear you, loud and clear.
Me, I’m wishing for the ability to be patient in 2007 as we work on untangling these health issues. Maybe it’s a matter of reshaping expectations; if I can stay out of the blessed hospital, who could ask for anything more…?
letting go of desire and being here now sound very buddhist, and i think really can help life satisfaction without abandoning the ego drive to strive for artistic achievement. i tend not to do resolutions — not for any more noble reason than i’m kind of psychically unorganized. i know what you mean about letting go of ideas of what you wanted to be (unless i’m misintrepreting the post), or kind of being ruled by the past or by what you don’t have, wreaking a general dissatisfaciton of the present. , and also goals, that i think can change your perspective; shifting my perspective made the difference in changing general unhappiness to contentedness this year. i have my unbelieveably cranky days, but i also remember to enjoy the fact that i can walk around because i have my legs; my folks are still alive; my husband is pretty rad; my friends are cool; i love ice cream and i’m not lactose-intolerant, etc. what’s the sweet w/o the bitter, from i sh*t you not, some korean proverb that i’ve massively massacred, b/c i have the worst memory. but that comforts me in bad moments–that our lows also enrich our lives as much as our highs and that there is a kind of beauty in both that i’m only now beginning to fully appreciate. a little. maybe after a bowl of haagen daaz chocolate chip mint.
My coffee cup is black and white from the Barbie collection at Hallmark and says: “Life is short, buy the shoes,” with a graphic of black Barbie shoes right below. Just so you know. Oh, and I like mine with one sugar and a generous dollop of half-and-half.
I have given up resolving this year. I made a pretty detailed list, but they’re not resolutions. I am adopting the idea of not trying to change myself–after all, if I did that, I’d no longer be me. Most resolutions, it seems, focus on making one’s self no longer one’s self–a new and improved you instead of just you. So, yeah, I’d like to weigh less and get the fireplace fixed, but I’m not *resolving* to do it. I’m just adding it to my to-do list and rolling with it. It is nice to have things written down sometimes–that keeps the 3 a.m. wrestling with my conscience happy. The thoughts aren’t bouncing in my head–they’re happily ensconced on a piece of paper, where they are now jailed, and my head is free.
I’ve always thought that Hope is nothing without Faith.
Hope requires nothing of us and therefore is comfortable.
I have to agree with Spot. As one reads through the comments, so many people have said they are now home, yet each is in a different area of the country, each with a different job, each with a different journey and yet Jenn you are able to speak to all of them and make them feel they were the only one you were writting to.
Success and failure, hope and dashed dreams – they are the spice rack on the wall of life. Ever try to cook something and know exactly how its going to taste when its done? Ever drive a car by only looking out the side window?
Those two guides you speak of, they have hopes and dreams its just they also are blessed with the ability to say “Damn missed that one, tryin’ for the next”. Well maybe not damn but you get the idea.
To those with PHD’s who do not use them, are you more sad that you are doing something else with your life, or in the fact that you fooled into believing that that is what success was?
To quote my favorite line for the TV show M*A*S*H – “Ladies and gentlemen pull down your pants and slide on the ice”.
I’ve given up on being a famous author. Dreams dreamt up in second grade can be let go of, especially when you’ve found life is more fun living when you’re not fighting it. Being a mom and wife is a far better future than I could’ve realized at 7.
My tea cup is brown, with a bright blue glaze on the top bit. It is Japanese, sent to me as a reminder of peaceful days spent in Japantown in San Francisco.
I’ve let go of depression and severe anxiety – somehow, after dragging mental illness around with me for (literally) half my life, I managed to lose it this year. I left it somewhere between my therapist’s office, the pharmacy, and my girlfriend’s warm arms. I’m not saying that I’m totally sane, but this is the first time in years that I can honestly say I *don’t* feel like something is desperately wrong with my head. If we were talking about hope, I’d say I hope it doesn’t return, but since I know the chances are otherwise, I’ll just say I’m comforted that it’s gone for now. They used to be my coping mechanisms, and for now I’ve settled into a slightly more productive headspace. I guess you could say I’ve finally come to terms with calling my own head “home.”
I think of it from a different perspective…..its not giving up hope, its learning to simplify and be present in the Here and Now. That is what I here you saying too…..and maybe some sense of this being a kind of “settling”? One thing that is beautiful about letting go of hope attached to old dreams is making room for new ones that might not have as much glitter and stardust on them but can be oh so much more deeply satisfying in that simple cranberry storm door mom down the street healthy beautiful children kind of way.
My tea mug is moss green with little blobs of color all over it. It’s square at the bottom and round at the top. I painted it myself at one of those do-it-yourself pottery places. It is my favorite mug, and it makes a funny clanking sound when I stir my sugar and skim milk into my Earl Greyer tea (Republic of Tea–it’s wonderful, you should try it).
Thank you to the PhD’s for writing that. I have a master’s in psychology and I now work in a bead store. But I also make beautiful jewelry and sell it, and the discount really helps!
Ok, so I’m not using the master’s degree now. Technically. But it’s a master’s in psychology with a specialization in school psychology, so I really use it every day with my two girls, ages 4 and almost 2. But, if I hadn’t stayed home with the girls, I wouldn’t have had the time to learn how to make all kinds of jewelry. And I probably wouldn’t have had the time and/or courage to apply to juried art shows and sell my stuff. No, I’m not where I “planned” to be, but here is pretty good. I have learned a lot about myself through the jewelry. Evidently, I needed to do this, too, to be a better me.
I made more positive resolutions this year. Like others in these posts, no weight loss. Instead, I would like to take a walk–often and outside. (you can’t hear birds on my treadmill) I would like to read more (even if it’s only a short story before bedtime. At least it’ll be Margaret Atwood and not Curious George.). I would like to have more sex. And I am really going to try to get a babysitter once a month, so I can go out with my husband. One more–I would like to do more yoga. I tried it in one class, and I really liked it.
So here is okay. It may not be what you planned at 17, but, really–what the hell did any of us know at 17 anyway? I like 35 (yes, I’ll admit it) more than 17, anyway.
Good luck in your searching. You have two beautiful girls, and everyone is healthy. Be at peace with it.
Thank you, as always, for a lovely blog.
I’m with Linda…I just CAN’T give up internetting at work. I got wireless at home so that I could stop but I – just – can’t. I’m letting that go…
I, for one, am drinking out of an oversized Saint Louis Starbucks Mug.
I (like so many others here) LOVED this post. For some reason it made me think of that John Lennon quote: “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” Isn’t that so true? Sort of goes along with The Mater’s comments about the “non-events” of life.
For myself, I find that at 35, while I am not necessarily at the place I THOUGHT I’d be when I imagined it as a younger version of myself, it is not a better or a worse place than what I imagined. I don’t have time right now to wax poetic… but know that you have touched me immensely with this post. Thank you for your words…
Oh life is so good because life is so sweet.
Your post made me think of a quote from The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen where he’s quoting Herman Hess:
0, how incomprehensible everything was, and actually sad, although it was also beautiful. One knew nothing. One lived and ran about the earth and rode through forests, and certain things looked so challenging and promising and nostalgic: a star in the evening, a blue harebell, a reed green pond, the eye of a person or a cow. And sometimes it seemed that something never seen yet long desired was about to happen, that a veil would drop from it all; but then it passed, nothing happened, the riddle remained unsolved, the secret spell unbroken, and in the end one grew old and looked cunning … or wise … and still one knew nothing perhaps, was still waiting and listening. – Herman Hesse
It also made me think of an Aimee Mann quote from Driving Sideways:
And you’re powered by
The hopeful lie
That its just around the bend
And when this, by default
Comes screeching to a halt
Lets hope that you
Know what to do
To start it up again
Surely you’re an Aimee Mann fan?
A new(er) answer though? I try to imagine what my kids will say to their kids about me. I’d like to live up to that kind of like your mom and aunt. So what if they fell short of their own expectations – they had a positive effect on you. Surely my shortfalls in regard to my own expectations will not matter when people down the road are affected by what the effect was of the actions for good or bad. It’s romantic to think that falling short of a noble goal can be inspiring to others, isn’t it? So, though I may have expectations today, they really aren’t that important. Surely they aren’t as important as spending quality time with my kids.
One way (kids) or the other (work) you have to get out of your own mind.
Besides, letting life happen is also more fun than trying to make it happen. The trips I took where I had no plan and traveled solo all on purpose were pretty much the only ones where I realized some hard fought personal growth. Those are trips where I ended up in other states and countries just by following the thread of opportunities one after the next. Oh, yeah, my good ‘ol days. Trips with an agenda and friends are really just fun.
I think it’s nice to think about letting expectations go, but really, as a parent (and I am too) I know I can’t do it on the effective scale that I used to because kids needs food and shelter and stability and a lot of attention. It’s not realistic to ‘let life happen’ when you’re a caregiver. When I did that in the past I took off with a motorcycle a tent and $200 (the motorcycle was an upgrade from when I walked). Those days are on a hiatus for a good long while now for me.
But really, if you haven’t read the Snow Leopard it’s a great book about transitions, expectations and personal growth. I’ve given it as a gift to people going on journeys of discovery.
Thanks for your post- I found it very comforting. I’ve given up buying a house in the foreseeable future, and I’m sticking with my falling-apart, tiny slumlord-owned place. And I’m going to try to have kids now. (insert terrified/excited flutter in chest here).
I spent the latter part of my 30′s feeling exactly as you’ve described. The lowest point for me was my 20 year high school reunion. It was devastating to listen to my peers talk about their careers — doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs. I graduated at the top of my class, and I was home wiping little behinds every day! Clearly not the life of my dreams.
I celebrated the big 4-0 a few years ago and my perspective has since shifted. There’s something about being in the “second half” of your life that changes your thinking. Instead of wanting to HAVE things, I’m looking to GET RID of things.
I regret the time and energy I spent being miserable, and yet I believe it was part of the process that brought me to the contentedness (is that a word?) of now. My growing faith played a big part in the change as well.
You, too, will find your way through this muck, and it will be all your own. I look forward to reading about it! Thank you for sharing your joys and struggles with us.
I’m trying to let go of “want”. It’s a powerful drug, it is. There seems to be so much of it that it is hurting my marriage, too. I want, want, want. He’s content, content, content. Mostly, it just brings about pain for us. Why can’t I let it go? Why do I grip so tightly to it?
Why did you make me say that?
somehow, as suicidal as I’ve been lately, this post made me feel slightly less so. something I didn’t believe was possible, even just this morning.
thank you.
A wise woman (okay, my therapist), once told me, if you set your expectations low, you might be pleasantly surprised. Not bad advice sometimes.
Like other commentors, I’ve had a bad year. Ended with the miscarriage of my twins. My first pregnancy. I hereby pledge to let go of the idea that fertility is fair.
I’ve lurked on your blog for a long time. I knew you sorta, kinda, way back when you had big bangs…(you dated my brother in college…) Thankfully, I don’t have to let go of the hope you’re still awesome, because I can see that you definitely are (even without the big bangs– those were pretty cool).
I loved this, Jenn. It’s why I read your blog.
I think this year I learned to stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. After 7 years, I’ve stopped trying to turn myself into a stay-at-home mom, and I’ve accepted the fact that this full-time-mommyhood stuff has worn out its welcome in my life. I MUST find something fulfilling to do. Motherhood is very fulfilling, but I really believe it is too much of a good thing for me right now. I need a part-time life away from my kids. Working that out with my husband is another matter. I’ll figure it out because the old saying is true: when mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.
Thanks for making me feel less alone in the new year!
I don’t want to write another post yet because I’m afraid you’ll stop writing all these beautiful words that are just knocking me out. In the best way. Thank you. So much.
The descriptions of your mugs. I don’t know why that touches me so much, but wow, it really does. Wish I could pour coffee or tea into all of them.
Spot is gagging right now.
Jenn, I do believe you have set one foot on the path to self-actualisation!
I had visitors to stay over Christmas, so I have a new set of plain pastel coloured mugs that don’t match the old primary coloured ones that DO match my tiny, inefficient, do I REALLY need to extend it maybe I could just rearrange/tidy it up? kitchen. You know what? True to the spirit of your post, I’ll put ‘em away and carry one using the old ones!
Using this doll, would you please show the court where the mugs touched you.
Jenn, I am in awe of your ability to capture the thoughts and feelings I seem to have running through my head all day long. Thank you for this post.
At the end of 2005, I left the life I’d created in Boston & moved to NYC – just because I wanted to. By the end of 2006 I’d left NYC and returned to Boston because I was able to see – after literally stepping away from what I had in Boston – that MA was actually 100% where I wanted to be. I chased my dream of NYC but finally saw that the dream I wanted – the life I wanted – had been in front of me all the time….but I was too focused on Manhattan to notice.
So, I will toast to the right here & now with you this 2007. For the first time in my life I feel I have let go of the nagging voice in my head that keeps telling me to GO and MOVE and DO and in the past month have started hanging with HERE and NOW and MOMENT. And it’s a glorious thing.
Thank you again for such a beautiful post. Your words are such a comfort.
i was hoping to write a particularly meaningful comment here, but the dog is sitting next to me and unabashedly passing gas so it’s a little difficult to concentrate.
but: you are right.
i am the sort of person who always has plans to change, plans to do life better, plans to become a better person, and i think i have more fun with the plans than i do with the actual change.
this year, of course i had vague new year’s resolutions floating around in my head, but it was sort of a shock to realize that i’m pretty happy with the way things are now. and i hope (there it is!) i can stay that way: perfectly present and happy (or even just accepting) with the way things are going.
Dear Jenn,
I’m not going to be able to offer you any words of wisom, here…but I will say I know how you’re feeling.
My problem with letting go of want is that I start to get listless. Bored…I guess I’ve never TRULY been able to let go…I’m always looking for something…more. But then, can’t that be a good thing, too? It’s painful, yes, but it’s motivational, too. It’s what takes us from one point to another. Why do we have to be satisfied? Ever? Why can’t we always want more?
Doesn’t it push us?
From good to great? From satisfied to fulfilled? From ditch to garden?
I don’t know.
I do know that this hunger inside of me has propelled me to do better things than anyone believed I could…
Maybe someday the pain of it won’t be worth it. But for now, I’m wanting. I deserve to want.
You do, too.
And it doesn’t mean we’re not happy with what we have.
Just an alternate point of view…
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the comments here too. Great discussion!!!
I had hoped you would pop back in and tell us your thoughts in light of what people have been saying in response to your post. I definitely think this post deserves a sequel!
Okay!
I’m no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I’m not waking up every day wondering if this is going to be THE day, the day that changes my life, the day that a fabulous book deal falls in my lap or the day that I win the lottery.
Because I win the lottery every day.
“Using this doll, would you please show the court where the mugs touched you.”
ROTFLOL Is this classic Spot or what?!
Anyhow, I am feeling guilty because I have not yet blogged in the new year and Jenn, you are one hard act to follow after this thought-provoking essay.
A sequel sounds “spot” on. Cough.
Long time reader, first time commenter (is that even a word? Ehh…we’ll just go with it).
It has taken me a good dozen years to finally get to a point in my life where I am simply happy to be me. Many a lofty goal now sits abandoned on the roadside as I journey toward the person I am slowly becoming. And as I sit at a small desk in a small windowless office and squint at the computer screen though the haze of fluorescent lighting I am fully aware that my life is nothing like what I had planned. This is most certainly not where I intended to be at the age of 27. *sigh* Perhaps I am too young to be this jaded, but I have managed to attain more life experience than most in my few short years on this shiny blue marble. Now, I am in no way saying that I have attained Nirvana, but I have finally reached a point where I am able to contentedly sit back in my ergonomic desk chair and simply see where the day takes me.
My only suggestion would be to try and look at the world though the eyes of your children because the possibilities are still infinite.
“Did you throw out the last few pieces of that hard salami?” says my husband.
“Yeah. I thought they were bad.” They looked bad. Kind of greasy.
“Well, they weren’t” he says.
“I think they’re still just at the top of the garbage can.” is my reply.
“Things aren’t THAT bad.” he says.
So that’s where we are. Still not at the point where we’re digging almost gone salami out of the garbage for a late evening snack. Living in squalor, behind on our bills, definitely not being the supportive, mind-expanding mom I want to be, I am also working on the living in the now, not piling hopes on a future that isn’t going to be showing itself to this family and figuring out all the other comforts and joys that are within reach.
I don’t know, Jenn. We just got back from a marvelous four days up north of playing in the snow, and not having to do laundry, and not having piles of crap around to be cleaned up, and no email to be checked. And the week started with us driving on New year’s Eve through the first snow we’ve had in this state, turning a four hour drive into a seven hour drive, ending with us in a ditch about a mile from our destination. If a neighbor hadn’t happened to decide to drive out and pick up his newspaper at 6 o’clock at night, we’d have been lugging two tired and chilly children through the snow to the cabin, then my husband would have trekked back with a come-along to try to pull the car out in the dark, alone. Instead our neighbor (and Senator!) pulled us out – and as we waited for him to come back from plowing the road the rest of the way in, a city transplant decided he had the right of way coming down an icy hill, and we ended up in the ditch again, this time atop a culvert. Happy New Year. But we got her out the next day, and didn’t have to pay exorbitant holiday rates. And Oliver, who seemed irreversably traumetized during the event itself (“Daddy’s Car! Daddy’s Car Stuck!) is not having screaming nightmares. And I think that’s kind of what our life is going to be like. We’ll have some days building snow caves and sitting in front of a fireplace. And we’ll have some days careening backwards into the ditch, hearing our front bumper get ripped from the car. All I can hope for this coming year is that we can eventually laugh about the crap that happens and move on until the next thing hits us.
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