April 12, 2015
Down into the haunting depths she
plummeted. Awakened to find herself surrounded by copious amounts of stringy tendrils, some grasp blindly and some that stung. Eyeless morphing mushroom heads billowed
elegantly in the deep blue. Their
translucent bodies danced in rhythm along the undulating wash and ebb.
An alien she, a morsel for the taking,
beating breathless wound in strands of kelp.
A foreign sunken forest seated amid the unending blue. Waving, winding fronds cover the shadowy
towers leading to the sandy bottom lost below. A mortal creature with a life measured in
few heartbeats throbbing loud in her ears….
Do you ever feel like you are drowning, not literally, but wound up in the necessities of life so tightly that who you are as an individual is pulled into the depths? I do. Obligations have a way of sucking the life out of a person if permitted. I bear and have borne many titles. Some of the more pleasant being: mom, wife, daughter, athlete, artist, seamstress, bookworm. Some titles I have desired more than others. Some come with what you're dealt in life, like cancer patient, cancer survivor, and totally derail your best laid plans that lead to those sought after titles like: master's degree, veterinarian, scientist, doctor or even physicist. Nerd, loser, geek, dog, horse are those slapped on by others and hard to shake.
I never did fit in well in school post kindergarten. I learned to hide my emotions pretty quick. Build a wall and crawl into your shell. The problem is that when you suppress sadness, you don't feel happiness to its truest heights either. When you block pain, joy doesn't radiate as brilliantly. Bring on in fatigue and you begin to feel numb.
And the constant tug-o-war means that eventually under the pressure of life, duty and necessity either something has to give or one's sanity will snap. That or you keep at a driving march until you drop. So the intellectual me got shoved now deep into a box and stored for later when I had time to do more than just survive life. I put me up on a shelf so long ago so that I could care for those I love. I became less so they could grow. Motherhood, while one of the greatest experiences, can be all consuming. The problem is that part of me that so long ago that in youthful exuberance dreamed dreams of writing grand stories and filling huge canvases with masterpieces awakes to find that these grand plans for the future have not come to fruition, but rather seem to have drifted even farther away from the shores of possibility what with all the responsibility and heaviness of life, my little boat of dreams is in threat of sinking into oblivion under the weight of its heavyhearted cargo. My faith has kept me afloat.
To dissuade any perceptions that I would have done anything differently, I state the following: I love family and I would do it all again. Our family has more than our fair share of health issues. The biggie being Hirschsprungs Disease. Our son had a rough start to life. It took all I had to help him survive through those first few years of life. He is a tough, determined little fellow and I am proud of him. Maybe I'll tell his story in a blog some day soon. He is one amazing kid. (Of course I am totally biased.)
This is where I take this blog in a different direction. Thus far dear reader, I realize that I have kept you at arms length. Allowed only a few glimpses at who I am lest I be rejected as an unworthy read or being found to be made of glass and entirely fragile, not to mention see through. Appearing weak isn't anything anyone wants and yet, sometimes it's necessary to be vulnerable in order to be understood. Fear of failure and fear that I do not make the bar have kept me from expressing personal opinions other than those impish inklings leaking out through my fictitious little darlings I dare share.
And thus I find myself fighting aquification, attempting to untangle myself from the kelp forest of self-doubt and struggle to the surface to gasp for air and maybe find a way to that golden shores of balance between my stay at home mommy life and intellectual satisfaction. And perhaps, I'll stop writing in circles in order to build up a wall of words to protect myself.
(And maybe I will admit that I too, just like the rest of the human race have been conditioned to take up the quest for the golden goblet of success though I am not entirely sure I know what it actually looks like or if it actually holds any water.)
Do you ever feel like you are drowning, not literally, but wound up in the necessities of life so tightly that who you are as an individual is pulled into the depths? I do. Obligations have a way of sucking the life out of a person if permitted. I bear and have borne many titles. Some of the more pleasant being: mom, wife, daughter, athlete, artist, seamstress, bookworm. Some titles I have desired more than others. Some come with what you're dealt in life, like cancer patient, cancer survivor, and totally derail your best laid plans that lead to those sought after titles like: master's degree, veterinarian, scientist, doctor or even physicist. Nerd, loser, geek, dog, horse are those slapped on by others and hard to shake.
I never did fit in well in school post kindergarten. I learned to hide my emotions pretty quick. Build a wall and crawl into your shell. The problem is that when you suppress sadness, you don't feel happiness to its truest heights either. When you block pain, joy doesn't radiate as brilliantly. Bring on in fatigue and you begin to feel numb.
And the constant tug-o-war means that eventually under the pressure of life, duty and necessity either something has to give or one's sanity will snap. That or you keep at a driving march until you drop. So the intellectual me got shoved now deep into a box and stored for later when I had time to do more than just survive life. I put me up on a shelf so long ago so that I could care for those I love. I became less so they could grow. Motherhood, while one of the greatest experiences, can be all consuming. The problem is that part of me that so long ago that in youthful exuberance dreamed dreams of writing grand stories and filling huge canvases with masterpieces awakes to find that these grand plans for the future have not come to fruition, but rather seem to have drifted even farther away from the shores of possibility what with all the responsibility and heaviness of life, my little boat of dreams is in threat of sinking into oblivion under the weight of its heavyhearted cargo. My faith has kept me afloat.
To dissuade any perceptions that I would have done anything differently, I state the following: I love family and I would do it all again. Our family has more than our fair share of health issues. The biggie being Hirschsprungs Disease. Our son had a rough start to life. It took all I had to help him survive through those first few years of life. He is a tough, determined little fellow and I am proud of him. Maybe I'll tell his story in a blog some day soon. He is one amazing kid. (Of course I am totally biased.)
This is where I take this blog in a different direction. Thus far dear reader, I realize that I have kept you at arms length. Allowed only a few glimpses at who I am lest I be rejected as an unworthy read or being found to be made of glass and entirely fragile, not to mention see through. Appearing weak isn't anything anyone wants and yet, sometimes it's necessary to be vulnerable in order to be understood. Fear of failure and fear that I do not make the bar have kept me from expressing personal opinions other than those impish inklings leaking out through my fictitious little darlings I dare share.
And thus I find myself fighting aquification, attempting to untangle myself from the kelp forest of self-doubt and struggle to the surface to gasp for air and maybe find a way to that golden shores of balance between my stay at home mommy life and intellectual satisfaction. And perhaps, I'll stop writing in circles in order to build up a wall of words to protect myself.
(And maybe I will admit that I too, just like the rest of the human race have been conditioned to take up the quest for the golden goblet of success though I am not entirely sure I know what it actually looks like or if it actually holds any water.)
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