Small Smiles and the Compass Question

I'm trying to find a balance somewhere.

I made someone laugh aloud yesterday, in person. It made me feel real instead of like this amorphous stressball.

I took myself out to dinner to a small diner in town Friday night, and for less than $7, had a hearty country meal and a lovely helping of semi-silence while I watched a man wrangle his two toddlers through dinner, and at another table watched what looked like grandparents indulging their granddaughter, whose jeans had a jeweled applique of pink and purple flower on one leg that sparkled. I left all the gadgetry and notebooks and books and other trappings in the car. It was lovely, once I got over the twitching.

A friend and colleague shared tickets to a short event Friday night, and we helped a new distillery ring in Chattanooga Whiskey. It did me a world of good to get out of my office's four walls. I think maybe my world shrunk while I wasn't looking, and I forget there is a category other than Work and Home. It was nice to be reminded of Other, and Fun.

I walked Otto and as I was telling him what a good little furboy he is, he pooped out part of a ten dollar bill. Then he grinned his doggy grin, as if to say, "Are you really going to be mad about this, when really it's just sort of funny?"

I have a wonderful life. I have a good job with great colleagues in a nice city, the love of family and friends. And yet I spend so much time feeling like a failure, like there should be ore to show for my 33 years than just waking up and working and eating and sleeping and rinse repeating. I thought there was going to be more than this, that there would, sometime after college and after becoming a Real Life Grownup (TM), come some sort of epiphany that would give me a sense of belonging and rightness, to let me know where I am supposed to be. I've been waiting on that epiphany, waiting to set down roots, to make firm commitments, to make major decisions. I've been waiting on maybe-meeting someone who could serve as a stand-in for that epiphany and maybe help guide my decision-making.The recent death of a friend made me more impatient than ever that this Sudden Realization (TM) should come along and quickly, as I am running out of time, in addition to just being damned tired of waiting for Life to begin.

I am slowly coming to the realization - I don't think there is a big epiphany. I don't think God or gods or the universe hold their own versions of the Intervention show (though I suppose the occasional tragedy serves, sometimes). Life is in full swing right now, and I'm living it, and I'm more than a third of the way through it, if family history is any indication. And is this really the way I want the next years to go, blurring by as I go through the motions, waiting for an Undefined Something to serve as my compass? I've been using work as my compass, but that has become unsatisfying. (Not the work itself; I enjoy librarianship. But I don't want that to be what my major decisions revolve around.)

I'm curious as to what others use as their anchors. I was going to say, "primary motivators," but I'm motivated - just in too many directions. How do you choose what to focus on? What is your Big Thing that serves as your compass? Or is there no Big Thing at all?

Colleen Harris

Colleen Harris

Curious woman finding that things just get curiouser and curioser...

Posterous theme by Cory Watilo