Life...

I aspire to be someone who is happily busy and productive; someone who fills time beyond work with volunteering, projects, socializing, getting exercise, cooking... the key word here being aspire. I often do fit a lot in but not without feeling very flustered and overwhelmed. Really - whoever decided that 24 hours in a day is enough was horribly mistaken. I'm ashamed to say I haven't spent much time with Isla in the past few weeks. Somehow she has fallen to the side while I get my bearings and try to rebuild my life.

I have been working quite a bit in the pottery studio with my friend Lacey who saves my life finacially EVERY time I need it... and I reciprocate by saving hers when she needs help. Luckily we are often in need at the same time. While my job hunting is on hold at the studio it gives me lots of time to think about what it is I am looking for. Which I have heard is important, but this part always trips me up. What am I looking for? I am very good at piecing together a maze of guidelines around what I want my life to look like. But often bits of my criteria contradict each other and end up drawing up the impossible. I like to think you can manifest whatever it is you want in your heart, and mostly I think this is true, but in this process I always tie myself in knots. My priorities get muddled and I'm becoming more and more certain that I have set up the same road blocks for myself for the past ten years.

Someone pointed out to me recently that I want it all and that just isn't possible. I need to figure out my priorities and realize that I will have to compromise something. This same wise person reminded me that I am an outside of the box kind of person and maybe my problem is that I keep trying to find my place inside the box. When I know that the box is too small for me.

I was hoping desperately to keep the grounded, clear life perspective that I spent the past many months carefully cultivating. I packed it up neatly on Isla, safely stowed for the journey, readily available at every moment. I think somehow some other junk must have gotten packed on top of it because while I know it is still there somewhere, it's a little harder to see all of a sudden. I know that everything will work out. Life has a way of doing that for you. I know that no matter how long it takes me to find a job, I will not be homeless or go hungry. Ramen is very inexpensive and I have lots of friends. I know that no matter what job I do find, I will find a way to take care of Isla and meet my basic needs. But I always seem to have a lot of bigger needs that I would really like to be met and I'm losing sight of how all of them can happen in the very near future. I NEED them to. For my sanity and happiness I NEED, ok, and WANT them to. Like a job that will allow me to pay for Isla, pay my bills, buy groceries, have some fun, AND go to Florida periodically to be with my family. Simple, right? Well, if you think it is and you think you have the answer aside from mentally manifesting, I would love to hear your thoughts. My brainstorming is taking me in circles as usual and while I know it is time for action instead of thought, I'm really not sure what I should be pursuing to make this all happen. Except money. Which I hate.

I have spent the past month in a very odd space in which I thought (and maybe still do think) that what I need is a normal, 9-5, full time job, with benefits, that will actually make me some money. Something that I have really never had before. Or wanted, quite frankly. The thing is, I'm not sure that I have, or rather, I am quite sure, that I do NOT have the skills that will get me such a job. I don't even know what people in those kinds of jobs do. For the past couple of days I have started thinking seriously about doing what I love and being an artist. Right back to no money, no stability, no benefits, which doesn't solve any of my current issues or needs, BUT... I'm realizing that for all the follow-your-heart talk that I do, I have never really entertained that if I wanted to make art a job, I could. When I think about what I want to be when I grow up, I come up with a whole lot of nothing. Or a bajillion little things that wouldn't hold my interest for long but I would like to experience anyway. But the thing that resonates the most with me is art. Creativity. So maybe I will have to become a waitress at a diner, and maybe I won't be a mother who has a career per se, but maybe I will always have pieces of myself that carry me along, get me by and make me happy. Like making purses, or pottery or giving a massage or two. And maybe that is what I want in the end. Or maybe it's not. But I'm becoming more comfortable with the idea that if it is what I want, I can make it happen.

I am so inspired by people who truly follow their heart and take chances in life. I try to do it myself sometimes and it is incredibly helpful to know that other people are doing it too, and they are still alive and well. I am starting to develop my creative side into something that is really ME. Something genuine, something that I trust, something that is mine. As usual it is in pieces as I have many little interests. But perhaps someday they will all come together into something that makes sense.

My outward expression started today with a new glaze design, which never comes easily to me, but just sort of popped out. I'm hoping for more of this spontaneous creativity to help shape my life. The good thing about my mental tyrades in which I try to figure it all out is that I eventually get tired and realize it will all work out and it's not worth worrying about too much. It eventually brings me back to my simple, clear thoughts about life in which I realize the best thing I can do is drink my tea or eat some ice cream and be grateful and happy.