The Summer of my Discontent
This has got to be the single most frustrating summer I have ever had. I was under the (apparently) mistaken impression that life was supposed to get better and easier as we move into our "middle aged" years. Oh yeah, and I hate that expression. The way I see it, if you die in a fiery crash at twenty, you were middle aged at ten. Not a very uplifting idea. So, using that formula, if I am middle aged now, I will live to be 90. It seems too long.
Due to my health problem, I had to drop my summer class, which I was looking forward to. It's sort of sick and weird, but I do like school. My brain feels much clearer when it is getting constant exercise. I got Bell's Palsy, a bizarre but perfectly harmless affliction. It is not painful, just annoying. The worst part is that I cannot do a lot of close eyework, hence the cancellation of my summer class. I cannot blink with my left eye, and blinking seems to be something I have taken for granted for all these years. This also prevents me as well from spending a lot of time on the computer as well. So a summer of brain exercise is pretty much out.
Weeding in the vegetable garden is a horror, the dust is a worry. I was able to go out and see the infant cantaloupes and watermelons, and view the maturing corn, but not to stay out and love them.
My mouth has not been working right, so my singing is off. This has turned daily practice into a sort of self torture, an exercise in frustration, and I am not able to spend a lot of time going over music anyway.
I had not realized, how much I depend on my eyes daily. When I have a spare moment, I will pick up some Yeats, or some Eliot and read a snatch or two. I revel in the artistry of words. I love to dwell in the thought processes of others, as if I am seeing through someone else's eyes. To pick up a medical journal, or find some bizarre disease online. The joy of reading Dante, or Austen, or Bukowski.
Everything I am, that I do daily, is taken from me.
What this has done, in effect, has given me a lot of time to think. When I was but a mere hippo of a girl, my father told me that thinking a lot, was in general a bad idea. Dad was right. It is leading me to a sort of lunacy, and into an odd journey of self discovery.
Whereas I am completely unable to be negative about others, I find myself unable to be positive about myself. I started out telling myself all the good things about myself. I am a mom, love the kids, and I love my friends with the red hot fire of a thousand suns. I am in school, to finally do what I have wanted to do for years and doing well. I am kind to animals. As much as I can think of that is positive in my life, right now, I cannot seem to dwell in it, as if it was an apartment I was forbidden to enter unable to cross the chained and bolted door.
As I passed the first anniversary of the end of a relationship that I was so happy in, I found myself questioning my sanity. Maybe it was me. Am I wrong to know so surely what I want? Am I wrong to have passion for someone, something, for life? Is it wrong to have expectations? I find the lower one's expectations are for others, the less you are disappointed in life, this I do know.
There are things we all love and things we all hate about ourselves. This is part of the human condition, but why then does it seem that the least introspective, seem to be the very happiest people among us?
I seem at times to be internally contradictory, and sometimes it leaks to the outside as well. How can someone be insecure, and yet arrogant? How can someone be so bright, and sometimes lack basic, common sense? How do I manage to love something with such passion and hate with equal strength? How can I be so brave, while quaking with fear inside at times? I am willful, yet obedient. I relish an intellectual argument, yet run from a personal confrontation. These things seem to be at odds with one another on basic levels. Is everyone like this or is it just me? I don't hear people talking about it much, so it very well could be.
I think what this summer has done for me, and it has barely begun, is to strip back a lot of the layers that I created with my music, my books, chess, the garden. It is as if I had encased myself in contentment from outside sources and forced me to look at myself in a very naked way. I have watched every movie I wanted to see on the cable, on DVD, the netflix. Listened to a hundred operas, and when they are over, the self talk begins. In the long run, has my self doubt only been pushed back by the exercise of my mind by will over and over again? I thought the good part of middle age, was that you finally began to realize who you were. Or is the real secret of a successful transition to this time of life the realization that who you are may be partially out of your control and subject to outside forces?
Right now, I have no concrete answers. I guess I have plenty of time to think about it.
Due to my health problem, I had to drop my summer class, which I was looking forward to. It's sort of sick and weird, but I do like school. My brain feels much clearer when it is getting constant exercise. I got Bell's Palsy, a bizarre but perfectly harmless affliction. It is not painful, just annoying. The worst part is that I cannot do a lot of close eyework, hence the cancellation of my summer class. I cannot blink with my left eye, and blinking seems to be something I have taken for granted for all these years. This also prevents me as well from spending a lot of time on the computer as well. So a summer of brain exercise is pretty much out.
Weeding in the vegetable garden is a horror, the dust is a worry. I was able to go out and see the infant cantaloupes and watermelons, and view the maturing corn, but not to stay out and love them.
My mouth has not been working right, so my singing is off. This has turned daily practice into a sort of self torture, an exercise in frustration, and I am not able to spend a lot of time going over music anyway.
I had not realized, how much I depend on my eyes daily. When I have a spare moment, I will pick up some Yeats, or some Eliot and read a snatch or two. I revel in the artistry of words. I love to dwell in the thought processes of others, as if I am seeing through someone else's eyes. To pick up a medical journal, or find some bizarre disease online. The joy of reading Dante, or Austen, or Bukowski.
Everything I am, that I do daily, is taken from me.
What this has done, in effect, has given me a lot of time to think. When I was but a mere hippo of a girl, my father told me that thinking a lot, was in general a bad idea. Dad was right. It is leading me to a sort of lunacy, and into an odd journey of self discovery.
Whereas I am completely unable to be negative about others, I find myself unable to be positive about myself. I started out telling myself all the good things about myself. I am a mom, love the kids, and I love my friends with the red hot fire of a thousand suns. I am in school, to finally do what I have wanted to do for years and doing well. I am kind to animals. As much as I can think of that is positive in my life, right now, I cannot seem to dwell in it, as if it was an apartment I was forbidden to enter unable to cross the chained and bolted door.
As I passed the first anniversary of the end of a relationship that I was so happy in, I found myself questioning my sanity. Maybe it was me. Am I wrong to know so surely what I want? Am I wrong to have passion for someone, something, for life? Is it wrong to have expectations? I find the lower one's expectations are for others, the less you are disappointed in life, this I do know.
There are things we all love and things we all hate about ourselves. This is part of the human condition, but why then does it seem that the least introspective, seem to be the very happiest people among us?
I seem at times to be internally contradictory, and sometimes it leaks to the outside as well. How can someone be insecure, and yet arrogant? How can someone be so bright, and sometimes lack basic, common sense? How do I manage to love something with such passion and hate with equal strength? How can I be so brave, while quaking with fear inside at times? I am willful, yet obedient. I relish an intellectual argument, yet run from a personal confrontation. These things seem to be at odds with one another on basic levels. Is everyone like this or is it just me? I don't hear people talking about it much, so it very well could be.
I think what this summer has done for me, and it has barely begun, is to strip back a lot of the layers that I created with my music, my books, chess, the garden. It is as if I had encased myself in contentment from outside sources and forced me to look at myself in a very naked way. I have watched every movie I wanted to see on the cable, on DVD, the netflix. Listened to a hundred operas, and when they are over, the self talk begins. In the long run, has my self doubt only been pushed back by the exercise of my mind by will over and over again? I thought the good part of middle age, was that you finally began to realize who you were. Or is the real secret of a successful transition to this time of life the realization that who you are may be partially out of your control and subject to outside forces?
Right now, I have no concrete answers. I guess I have plenty of time to think about it.
posted by Dawn at 8:35 AM
1 Comments:
Maybe if you start being really negative about others, it will be easier to be positive about yourself. It seems to work for everyone else.
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