A Work of Art in Progress

So I’m supposed to be working but instead my mind and heart are a million miles away.

There are a few things I keep thinking about lately. A few things from the past that have affected my outlook on the future. I tried to have this conversation with my husband, but he couldn’t get past his facts and tried to create logic where emotions and spirituality are involved. I feel that I’ve allowed myself to be lost in the hubbub of everyday activities, well no wait – although that may be true that’s not where the loss of me began. It began nearly 15 years ago. I don’t want to rehash the event, but it was awful and changed my life. I lost my carefree attitude towards life, love for the holidays, motivation, and focus. Like I said it was an awful event. Just when I think that I’m fully healed something rears its ugly head and infects the slow healing wound. I am changed and still changing. My husband is right when he says that our experiences shape who we are today, but when you lose a piece of yourself you sometimes have to stop and think about where you have been. How can one shape a piece of clay into a work of art when the artist has added to much water and the clay has no shape at all? A tragic event, the humdrum of everyday life are things that can water down our life and leave us with nothing to mold or shape. So I have been thinking about times where I have been a puddle of mud and how I have changed into an ever-forming work of art.

Most recently I have been reflecting on why I have been at my current job for so long, why I’ve put up with the crap, and what took me so long to go back to school so I could make a career change. It has all brought me back to that one event all those years ago. I was head strong; nothing was going to get in my way, nearly invincible, and ready to save the world. Maybe it was just immaturity, youthful innocence or arrogance. But the attitude was quickly changed into that of an introvert with complicated trust issues. I walked through the next few years doing things because I had to or they were expected of me. I thought about changing my major, but was convinced to remain on course – through friends, family, and ultimately my own decision and fear of change. I moved away from home and in with friends and my boyfriend (now husband). I graduated college and got a job. And it truly was a job, not a career. There was no real room for growth or advancement – unless I wanted to convert my religion and become a rabbi. When I began to witness things that went against my core beliefs I left. I didn’t fight, I just left – and burned my bridges while I was at it - damn Scorpio vengeance.

Shortly thereafter I found myself at my present job. When I was offered my current position a voice inside me screamed “NO”, but I didn’t listen. I went against my instincts even though it had always proven to put me in harm’s way. I quickly became a “yes” woman and tried to please everyone, not only my bosses but friends and family too. I just wanted to be happy and thought that I could live a humdrum life as long as those around me were happy. For a fleeting moment as we moved from our apartment with friends to our cottage, I thought about going back to school to change my career. Fear of risk and complacency helped me decide against school. I tried to fit in with a group of people that I knew in my heart I could not be a part of. I offered pieces of myself for acceptance only to be met with rejection. Herein lies issues that relate back to that awful event. The desire of acceptance met with rejection combined with fear of change, were brought about with the torture endured earlier in life. It stripped me of everything I was, everything I wanted to be, and everything I dreamt of being. I had no goals. I had no desires. I had no dreams. All I wanted was to live with my boyfriend, make money, and please others – especially those at my job (why I have no clue, but it is what it is). Friendships began to fade. Relationships became volatile. Many nights solace was found in a bottle.

5 years ago a few life changing events occurred. Although these were difficult to handle at the time, they have changed my focus on what is important in life and began to help me dream once again. I have discussed these events in previous posts – my cat died, my aunt was diagnosed with cancer, I lost a lifelong gift, and September 11th.

The first step towards my new life was taken in the midst of these events when I began to dream of the future. I contemplated my 8 year relationship with my boyfriend. Up to this point I had never pressured him about getting engaged, but then again I didn’t think I wanted more than what I had. I was looking for change. Not sure where to start or what to change I approached my boyfriend about “us” and where we were headed. I wanted more of a commitment and gave him an ultimatum date (7 months). If I was who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with he needed to commit to me or else I couldn’t stay.

OH how could I forget another major event! A few weeks after this conversation was September 11th. We did not lose anyone close on this horrific day but the Towers held a special place in our hearts. We used to be able to see the Twin Towers from our house and on this day we could see the smoke rising from my beautiful city’s skyline. We were both crushed by this. Having much of our family in the city throughout our childhood we spent many weekends there. For us the site of the towers represented love and family. On this day we literally smelled death and saw the symbolism of life as we had known it perish in its flames. 11 days later we were asked to move out of our home because the landlords’ daughter wanted to move in to the cottage and I began going to chemotherapy with my aunt. Devastation and depression sunk in. My boyfriend saw me slipping away. The little bit of light, love, and laughter that was left in my eyes was slowing fading away. He became consumed with trying to make me happy, trying to make me laugh even if it was just a soft giggle. The more he could do to make me smile, the more he realized that he could love no one more than he loved me. (HEHE – I love him for this)

We became engaged and the wedding whirlwind ensued. The minute he put that engagement ring on my finger I began to feel a change within me. I felt grounded, powerful, and more importantly loved. In the year that followed the wedding planning helped reawaken my inner-strength. I said no to people and spoke my mind. I felt a little bit like my old self before the awful event that emotionally beat me into submission. The wedding came and went. It was wonderful. We truly wish we could do it all over. Everyone was happy and had fun and we could feel their happiness in our hearts. It is one of the best feelings we have ever experienced.

Almost overnight I began to feel depressed again. Unable to identify the reason why, I sought counseling. I discovered much of what I have already explained – I had turned into a people pleaser and was afraid of change or taking a risk. I lost the ability to speak my mind in certain situations and now that I had a taste of it again and could see how much better life was when I did so I was feeling at lost in the areas where I could not express myself. Mainly this was directed at my job. Not just the people but the whole concept of the job. I began a job search only to find that any job I landed was not filling the need in my soul. I was never excited about an offer and could only foresee falling into the same rut I was trying to break out of. The wedding had offered a distraction from these feelings, but our covenant to each other did not subside the underlying emptiness. This darkness illuminated what my soul was lacking and the puddle of mud I had turned into. I remembered the one dream I held all my life. It manifested itself as different images, some bigger than life and others more realistic. I remember that I dreamt of helping people, doing something to make a difference in someone else’s life. By making this difference I could contribute to changing the world, sometimes you have to start small. I finally made the decision to go back to school for my teacher’s certification. Hoping this would fill my emptiness, hoping that there wasn’t too much water and I could begin to form myself once again.

Over the past two years I have pursued this dream (yeah I have a dream again!) and just about every step of the way I have received acknowledgements from the powers that be that I am on the right path. I truly am loving the time I spend in the classroom. I am finding myself reconnecting with that youthful attitude that I had thought died so many years ago. I am rediscovering myself – my beliefs, my values, my likes and dislikes, my dreams. I look at where I’ve been and where I’ve come from (because those are two different places) and think about what my 17 year-old self would have thought about my 26 year-old self. I don’t think I would have been too happy with myself; as a matter of fact I might have been disgusted with myself. I had become someone I never wanted to be. A pushover working for the man and not improving the world I lived in. Well, I am happy to say that I am no longer that person. I am not my 17 year old self either, but I have taken much of that attitude and begun to incorporate it into my new life philosophies that are still developing. I still hesitate taking a risk, but if I breathe deep enough and long enough I’ll forge ahead. At 17 I was frank, at 26 I had no opinion, now I like to believe I am tactfully honest. The insanity of life’s ups and downs has left me combining where I have been and where I have come from into who I am today.

Now, my regret is how long it took to get to this point. When having this discussion with my husband recently, like I said he didn’t quite get it. Maybe I wasn’t explaining it well or maybe he is too set in his opinions or fearful that I might revert back to that pushover with all this talk of the past. But he didn’t know me before the awful event. He has always had a hard time accepting that the event had such a profound affect on my life. I’m sure it must be difficult to know that the love of your life suffered such agony and there is nothing he can do to change it or make it better. He said he could hear regret in my voice, I think it made him nervous. I tried to explain that the regret was for time lost, but again he said there was no need for regret. My darling can be quite perceptive, at times I believe he is touched to the point of being empathetic, but he doesn’t know how to interpret the feelings of others and lacks the ability to get past the feelings and listen to the person. He sees the work of art but not the clay it started as. So I am left to this blog to express my feelings and maybe sort things through.

Now that I am becoming more aware of my dreams and closer to the realization of the one I began to pursue 2 years ago I recognize another dream that I have suppressed. I won’t divulge the goal of this dream as it is still something I am coming to terms with, but now it’s a race against time to make it a reality. I have yet to share this with anyone, not my husband or sister or best friends. It’s a dream that I have closed my eyes to for quite sometime now, and as the days pass I regret many of my past choices. I know that in time this dream will come to fruition; however I don’t know how much patience I have. I regret the time I lost in my self recovery and I resent the time that lies between me and the future. But I guess a work of art in progress takes time.