restless
It's springtime and I'm feeling restless. It happens in fall too, I think. The changing weather inspires movement and the unveiling of the land as the snow melts makes me wonder how the world looks elsewhere, beyond Alaska. In my younger years, I might have just packed up the truck and the dog and taken off to check it all out. Now that's not a real possibility, but the desire to roam is still there, and I feel this bubbling under the surface that keeps me from being settled. Today I was making a list of what I'd take if I were to hit the road for a few months, and what I'd take if I took the kids and husband with me.
None of this means that I'm not happy where I'm at, or that I don't love and cherish my family and our home. My life is good. It's just that different aspects of our selves show at different times, but they don't completely go away.
Last Friday night we went to a play up at the university. I was surrounded by young people, college kids (some of which were former students) and I felt transported back to when I was that age. I could say anything, do most anything, wear anything and it was all okay. I stayed up way too late back in the day, one night discussing philosophy and Hesse's ideas of self-actualization and the next playing quarters, watching stupid movies and seeing how many street signs we could steal. That kind of seeming contradiction of identity is okay in college; it's the one place where you're expected to be intellectual and irresponsible at the same time.
Now I'm a grown up. I have to parent my children, teach other people's children. I see folks at the grocery store who know me from church, or who know my husband in his professional context and there's an expectation that I'm a certain way. Most of the time this is all perfectly okay. I'm pretty straight forward and honest about who I am, but occasionally something reminds me of the "other mel" who dwells inside and I can't help but wonder not only which is the real me, but what one self, one world would make of the other. And the next logical question is, is one true? How can I be a pacifist and an NRA member? How can I encourage my own children to make good choices when I'm very tempted to grab a bottle of tequila, a box of Captain Crunch, some books and a tent and go on a bender?
Sometimes glimpses of this side of me scare my husband. He didn't know me until I was 26 and by then I was figuring stuff out, mostly. Still, I think one thing that drew him was my willingness to try anything once and say to hell with what other folks think. He once told me that every time I went away on a trip in the beginning, there was a part of him that thought I just wouldn't come back. I think he's over that now. He's a good man who parents by example, while I can mostly model expectations though sometimes I'm stuck with my "do as I say not as I do" policy of parenting. I know he blames me for the fact our 7 year old son occasionally says "shit" and I accept responsibility for that shortcoming on my part. For whatever reason there are days when I cuss like a stevedore; my hope is that the kids will learn context and code shifting, cause I probably ain't gonna change, despite my good intentions.
He's started to recognize the signs though, and I think he appreciates that I can nurture my need to be something other than a boring 40 something soccer mom through rather conventional means these days. Sometimes it's making the him or the kids watch a movie like The Shining or Pink Floyd's The Wall. Both of these films take me back to the past and let me do some vicarious living. I read The Shining one dark December night in Portland, Oregon, while I was totally alone, sleeping on a friend's brother's floor in an apartment with no furniture and cockroaches scurrying noisily along the kitchen counters. Never had I been so scared by a book and never had I been in a position (before cell phones and email) when I had only myself to turn to. Pink Floyd reminds me of a summer in Germany, when I was legal to drink and went to see them in an outdoor concert with 80,000 people. The guys next to us had one of those collapsible plastic water jugs filled with beer. We traded our Cheetos for their beer and a good time was had by all. I still can't hear the word "hooligan" without thinking about that day.
Sometimes it's getting a cup of coffee and a certain book and perseverating on the meaning of life, of peace, or fulfillment. On these days they humor me with dinner conversation where I ask question after question and challenge everything we all know about whatever... and then the next day I tell them the world doesn't have to make sense and not to think so much.
So here I am back where I started, feeling restless and not really knowing what to do about it. With this weather I see two good options. Option one is to strip down, paint my body green, and run down the driveway doing an imitation of an emu and yelling whoop! whoop! whoop! The other is to go fill my son's new super water soaker pistol and lie in wait until my husband comes home then jump out and attack him. Decisions, decisions, decisions.
None of this means that I'm not happy where I'm at, or that I don't love and cherish my family and our home. My life is good. It's just that different aspects of our selves show at different times, but they don't completely go away.
Last Friday night we went to a play up at the university. I was surrounded by young people, college kids (some of which were former students) and I felt transported back to when I was that age. I could say anything, do most anything, wear anything and it was all okay. I stayed up way too late back in the day, one night discussing philosophy and Hesse's ideas of self-actualization and the next playing quarters, watching stupid movies and seeing how many street signs we could steal. That kind of seeming contradiction of identity is okay in college; it's the one place where you're expected to be intellectual and irresponsible at the same time.
Now I'm a grown up. I have to parent my children, teach other people's children. I see folks at the grocery store who know me from church, or who know my husband in his professional context and there's an expectation that I'm a certain way. Most of the time this is all perfectly okay. I'm pretty straight forward and honest about who I am, but occasionally something reminds me of the "other mel" who dwells inside and I can't help but wonder not only which is the real me, but what one self, one world would make of the other. And the next logical question is, is one true? How can I be a pacifist and an NRA member? How can I encourage my own children to make good choices when I'm very tempted to grab a bottle of tequila, a box of Captain Crunch, some books and a tent and go on a bender?
Sometimes glimpses of this side of me scare my husband. He didn't know me until I was 26 and by then I was figuring stuff out, mostly. Still, I think one thing that drew him was my willingness to try anything once and say to hell with what other folks think. He once told me that every time I went away on a trip in the beginning, there was a part of him that thought I just wouldn't come back. I think he's over that now. He's a good man who parents by example, while I can mostly model expectations though sometimes I'm stuck with my "do as I say not as I do" policy of parenting. I know he blames me for the fact our 7 year old son occasionally says "shit" and I accept responsibility for that shortcoming on my part. For whatever reason there are days when I cuss like a stevedore; my hope is that the kids will learn context and code shifting, cause I probably ain't gonna change, despite my good intentions.
He's started to recognize the signs though, and I think he appreciates that I can nurture my need to be something other than a boring 40 something soccer mom through rather conventional means these days. Sometimes it's making the him or the kids watch a movie like The Shining or Pink Floyd's The Wall. Both of these films take me back to the past and let me do some vicarious living. I read The Shining one dark December night in Portland, Oregon, while I was totally alone, sleeping on a friend's brother's floor in an apartment with no furniture and cockroaches scurrying noisily along the kitchen counters. Never had I been so scared by a book and never had I been in a position (before cell phones and email) when I had only myself to turn to. Pink Floyd reminds me of a summer in Germany, when I was legal to drink and went to see them in an outdoor concert with 80,000 people. The guys next to us had one of those collapsible plastic water jugs filled with beer. We traded our Cheetos for their beer and a good time was had by all. I still can't hear the word "hooligan" without thinking about that day.
Sometimes it's getting a cup of coffee and a certain book and perseverating on the meaning of life, of peace, or fulfillment. On these days they humor me with dinner conversation where I ask question after question and challenge everything we all know about whatever... and then the next day I tell them the world doesn't have to make sense and not to think so much.
So here I am back where I started, feeling restless and not really knowing what to do about it. With this weather I see two good options. Option one is to strip down, paint my body green, and run down the driveway doing an imitation of an emu and yelling whoop! whoop! whoop! The other is to go fill my son's new super water soaker pistol and lie in wait until my husband comes home then jump out and attack him. Decisions, decisions, decisions.
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