This will be long...and convoluted.... but I have to write this down somewhere where I feel accountable. Stay with me.
I've been feeling lost lately. Occasionally I get these moments of terror where I feel as if I have just made a choice that has left me headed toward becoming the person I never wanted to be. I can never place the choice made or how the feeling can be rectified - and that makes the fear even worse. In talking with some friends last night I realized a bit of where this fear is coming from. In college I owned my life as much as a person can. I chose my classes, I read the books I wanted to read, I tried and experimented with ideas that I thought were great and new. When I wanted to do something or try something all I had to do was find someone who wanted to do something similar and we could do what we wanted together. I did not have to justify it and I did not have to worry about any consequences except for perhaps the judgments of others and my popularity with this person or that.
In my drastic change to living in a city, being married, and getting a real job in a real organization whose currency is results not ideas, I found myself floundering. I was constantly asking myself, "Who am I to suggest something new? I've only been a teacher for 3 weeks!" or "I've never been married before. Who am I to suggest that I have an idea for another way to do things?" If i did muster up the courage to suggest an idea I stumbled when I was expected to justify my idea or my earnestness for a change. It was terrifying and exhausting. I didn't know how to do it tactfully and I was terrified that if I failed I would loose all credibility or that I would be deemed naive. "Yes!" I want to scream sometimes "I do believe _____. And i intend to believe it for the rest of my life!"
Every time I chose to keep my mouth shut I lost some of my integrity. I was scared to be earnest and I felt insecure. And over the short time of 3 months I lost my ownership of many facets of my life.
Last night I realized that if I feel called to be a wife and a teacher I have to act like it. I have to own my earnestness and my sometimes radical ideas and my desire to do good in my own bumbling way - without apology and without excuse.
I realized that in this crazy world full of small daily choices I have to live deliberately. Thoreau was right. To find myself where I want to be I have to make every choice as if it were a deciding moment, because it is.
So here is to a new beginning. A new resolve to do live earnestly, to question the structure and not just the results, and to make new structures and communities to fulfill the needs I see.
There's a lot more I feel I can't find the words for. And what I did write is nothing special or different. But I needed it to feel real before I got lost in the paper work, and the grading and the "survival" that exhausts me before the day is over.
I am curious to know though....Does anyone else have this problem? Am I the only one who goes to bed at night wondering (in the brief minutes before I fall into a death-like sleep) if anything I did today really mattered? Or where my love for death ritual and afterlife belief went? Or why I can't seem to muster the energy to think about the world outside of the Bronx? Or why I said "yes" when I really meant "No. I don't think that will work and I will tell you why...." just because it was easier?
How do you do it? How do answer a world that equates earnestness with naivety?
4 comments:
Hi elisse. I have been feeling weird and moody and a bit angry with alot of things lately. lost. and then i think to myself am i reading my scriptures? when was the last time i went to the temple? so i read and i went and i cant believe to tell you how much better i feel. i feel as if my soul had somehow come back to me and i am alot more calm. i know we've heard pray, read, church our WHOLE lifes but now some how as a wife and a mother i really have to do these things daily or i feel lost & alone wondering if i made the right choices in life. i don't know if this even makes sence to what your blog was about but i felt i should share it with you! i love you and and miss you!xoxo
I totally know how you feel. When I got married, I lost a HUGE part of myself when I gained my other half. I suddenly felt barriers I didn't feel before nor were ready for them. I wondered if I jumped into this ever-after a little too soon. I found that I also stopped trying to voice my opinion as much. I think that a lot of my opinionatedness was lost with that part of me that I lost (when I gained my other half). I identified myself so much with my life and decisions in the single life, which was now GONE. Without going into it a lot, I don't know how else to describe it other than that Morgan was different when she was suddenly accountable to Brett. It has taken me almost two years to re-figure out who I am now that I'm married. While I'm still very much me, I'm also very much different now.
I've lost my train of thought, so I'm just going to say that you should hang in there, and you'll find Elisse again. And Steph is absolutely right. Don't forget the Lord in this self-rediscovery process, and he'll be a huge help. Remember your seminary answers and you'll be ok! Love ya!
The dead aren't going anywhere, so once you've acclimatised to the perma-transitional state which is "growing-up", you can renew your love of death rituals, no problem
Yes! Yes! Yes! Finally. I thought when I got married my life would all of sudden fall into place and I would be a pro at my newfound role as a wife. NOOOOO! It's so hard, and I find myself at times wondering why I did it. I don't have other drastic changes like graduating from college and moving to a huge city, but marriage was enough for me. Sometimes, I get frustrated with the idea that I can't run away with friends and spend the night wherever and get a whim in my head and follow it. And it's not that my husband is restricting me, it's just that it's different when you're married. You have this whole other person to live for, and you have to be a little more selfless. Living deliberately. Hm. I don't know. I think sometimes I go to bed wondering how I touched the life of someone... or did I? I find myself too often going through the motions of life without stopping to think about what's next.
PS. If you give me your address, I'll send you a wedding invite. they are super cute, and we still have some hanging around the apartment.
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