Dragonflies, Butterflies & Lady Bugs

The Bottom Line

I thought, for a minute, that I gave the wrong impression here of feeling guilty about occasionally wishing I was husband-and-kid-free. I don't feel guilty about the wish, necessarily, but more frustrated that my reality is that I don't have the free time I'd like to have, which is, of course, most people's reality.

In some ways, I'm mourning a life that existed prior to the fall of 2002, when I was able to go places and spend more time outside of the house. But in that fall, I became pregnant with Nina and moved our family to St. Louis to wait for Jasmine's transplant. And we just passed the one-year anniversary of Jasmine's death, which feels like an end bracket to a very tumultuous time in our lives. And I was still frustrated then, by a job that didn't feed my soul (except for through the interaction with some wonderful people) and that took a lot of my time.

In my evening pages (aka morning pages), I find myself writing a lot about what I would like my life to look like, and that's really the seed of these last two entries. I don't want my income to come from cube world, or, if I'm honest, even retail book world (though that would be muy preferable to cube world) -- I don't want that life where I punch a clock eight hours a day and have very little time to do what I love. I want to make money writing -- I want a job that doesn't feel like a job, a career that is on my own terms and that feeds my soul. I want to have time to belly dance, time to priestess and time to learn to knit. And I know that some people are able to make this kind of life happen. I'm afraid I can't, when it comes down to it, and again, that's where the "whiny" comes in. In trying to rationalize why I can't have this life, I tell myself that the people I know who live that life aren't parents, that they don't have the same obligations I do. But deep down, I know that's bullshit, just another way to keep myself from pushing through my fear.

Bottom line. My whining here isn't helping me to manifest any of these things, and lamenting that I have a husband and kids is a smoke screen. That's not really what's stopping me from having the life I want. My own fear is.

And in completely unrelated news, here's a pic of the cool mehndi I got at the Ren Faire yesterday:

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