Posts
Song Du Jour: I received the invitation to my twenty-year high school reunion.
Yeah. I’m that old.
Twenty years have passed and I still feel as unfulfilled and as lost as I did when I graduated. I had a plan, twenty years ago. I was going to go to college, law school, get married and have a few kids. I was going to be settled and comfortable by the time I reach 40.
And now I am 38 with a failed marriage and am a single mother. I owned two houses in my 20s and accumulated a lot of worldly possessions. Now I am two years away from being 40, and I own nothing. Everything that I had went right down the drain along with my marriage.
I am nowhere near being settled or comfortable.
I am so angry and disappointed with myself that I can’t sleep at night. I get what I need to get done during the day, and at night, I curse myself for all the bad choices I made these last twenty years. Because life really is about choices – and all the choices that I made led me to where I am now.
Do you remember that scene in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where the guy tries to drink from the cup of everlasting life, and he chooses the shiny gold cup, drinks from it and dies, and the Knight says “He chose… poorly”?
That’s how I feel right now. I’ve chosen poorly.
And I will spend the next half of my life trying to undo all the bad choices I have made.
And no, I will not be attending the reunion.
Yeah. I’m that old.
Twenty years have passed and I still feel as unfulfilled and as lost as I did when I graduated. I had a plan, twenty years ago. I was going to go to college, law school, get married and have a few kids. I was going to be settled and comfortable by the time I reach 40.
And now I am 38 with a failed marriage and am a single mother. I owned two houses in my 20s and accumulated a lot of worldly possessions. Now I am two years away from being 40, and I own nothing. Everything that I had went right down the drain along with my marriage.
I am nowhere near being settled or comfortable.
I am so angry and disappointed with myself that I can’t sleep at night. I get what I need to get done during the day, and at night, I curse myself for all the bad choices I made these last twenty years. Because life really is about choices – and all the choices that I made led me to where I am now.
Do you remember that scene in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where the guy tries to drink from the cup of everlasting life, and he chooses the shiny gold cup, drinks from it and dies, and the Knight says “He chose… poorly”?
That’s how I feel right now. I’ve chosen poorly.
And I will spend the next half of my life trying to undo all the bad choices I have made.
And no, I will not be attending the reunion.
“We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.” ~ Thomas Merton
“Life is a sum of all your choices.” ~ Albert Camus
11 Grinds:
Dear Nova,
I was just having this sort of talk with a friend today about pasts and futures and all I can say to you is;
Even though you might feel like you've failed in life, life gave you the greatest gift ever (single mother of not) and that is your beautiful daughter.
If you hadn't made the choices you once made, she might not be here today. That's what I think when I feel like a failure.
I just take one look at my little girl Freja and I think: My God! I've truly made it!
Keep fighting for your dreams to come true. Age is just a number :D
Nova,
When we try to reach the other side of town, our limited vision tells us to head straight down Main street because that is the most direct route. Later, when we reach our destination, we discover that life has sent us the long way around town, but we acquired wisdom and knowledge along the way that we would have missed had we gone straight down Main.
Sorry your feeling down :-( Maybe you should take your daughter to the park and smell some flowers :-)
Dirk
i understand completely. i couldn't quite express it so well on my own post yesterday, but i meant to say the same thing about choices. i am blaming myself and my choices, for the unhappy state i'm in now.
here's to hoping we both have a better future ahead of us.
you always have choices. you can choose to love yourself or hate yourself. you can choose to forgive or not forgive. even when it seems you have no choice.
i'm sorry you are having a hard time at this point in your life. there is some consolation that things could be even worse, that others are less fortunate than you. but that doesn't make "now" any easier.
i've never gone to a high school reunion. i've never even gone back to my old high school.
there are more possibilities in front of you than what you've left behind.
and vic is right. you have beautiful baby g, although she isn't so much a baby anymore. she is your light as much as you are hers.
wishing you both happiness.
choosing to beat yourself up about the past means you are treading water in the same place. i hope you will soon fully understand the choices you made from the aspect of how you wish to change them as you move forward. then i hope you will make moving forward your priority and that you will skip happily into the wonderful adventures of your future.
hugsssss.
No no no Nova You have made all the right choices. not by your standards, but by life's standards. You are STILL here on this earth and you are raising and loving a fine daughter and that is two of the best choices a human being can make. If you read my blog you might know that it got so bad foe me I seriously contemplated checking out twice, but I am glad I did not. I am 42 at the end of an 18 year marriage, struggling financially now and looking at losing our house. However, through all my trials and tribulations I have learned life goes on. There will be good times again and when they come they are even better. I totally knw where you are and it is good to get these things off your soul. It's gonna be ok Hon trust me!! BTW I never went to any reunions either. My ex and I went to the same school and graduate the same year. I sent her because I could care less about most of those people and how they are doing anyway. Everyone goes and just puts their best phony self forward any way! I have a rule of thumb.Don't read Sunset magazine if you want to feel good about home, don't' read health magazines if you want feel good about your fitness, and for God sake don't read women's magazines or men's magazines if you want to fee good about your sex life!Oh yeah and remember you are one kick ass martial artist with the sword and you beat up Italian guys and sailors like to hit on you when they are in town! :-)
p.s. if I am every in the area you are gonna show me the best coffee shops right?
Thank you for your kind words of encouragement on my page. My turn!
There are no wrong choices. They just take you down a different path, but it's never the wrong path. I know you are feeling down now, but that too shall pass. But I think that these negative feelings that we as women get once in a while are there to motivate. Change what you can, and accept what you can't change. Rejoice in the joys that this chosen path has brought you.
(Wow, that sounded sappier than I meant it to, but you get the point.)
But finish that Merton quote...
"...the deepest capacities of our real selves. From this flows the second difficulty: we too easily assume that we are our real selves, and our choices are really the ones we want make make when, in fact, our acts of free choice are (though morally imputable, no doubt), largely dictated by psychological compulsions, flowing from our inordinate ideas about our importance. Our choices are too often dictated by our false selves."
Being a lawyer, owning two homes, renting a house, being a mother (single or not), etc. are all roles we assign to people. Roles don't comprise who it is we are.
I'm also quite certain Merton would emphatically disagree with the Camus quote.
Our experience of life is based on how we choose to perceive what happens to us. That's the choice that really matters - not the stuff that happens like failed marriages and dashed expectations. If you get on a bus that crashes and leaves you paralyzed, there's no use forever beating yourself up for getting on that bus, right? We have to have compassion for our mistakes and misteps or there is no way we can make choices that reflect the reality of our deepest selves .
Of course - I'm the queen of kicking myself about the choices I've made and thinking my life sucks! Merton didn't say it was easy. :)
Ultimately, I do think the choice that matters most is how we choose to perceive what happens to us. It's that choice that causes us to act from the reality of who it is we truly are or from the psychological compulsions of our false selves.
There are some choices we do regret, but I know it is God leading us. He'll want us to trust Him to provide us with a better (not easy), more meaningful life.
Ah, yes. I know the feeling. I'll be 30 in just over 2 weeks, and you already know from my previous posts that I'm a bit pissed about how "behind" I am in my life goals. Well...shit! Don't regret the past or get too bogged down by it. (I'm telling myself this right now, too.) Just be grateful for the experiences, the lessons learned, the smiles had, and keep on growing. Commit to the path you desire, and you'll be headed in the right direction.
And physical objects are nothing. You can't take any of it with you when you're gone. You have an amazing little girl, though. That's freaking awesome. :)
Post a Comment