The rain and thick gray sky brings many thoughts, many forlorn or melancholy sometimes. Especially when one is stuck at home with no car and a back that has somehow gone out once again. It has become very frustrating that every time I get motivated to exercise I end up hurting my back no matter how gently I resume the activity. I suppose I will be stuck with this spare tire around my stomach for the rest of my life at this rate! Agh, but how petty is this concern. It is reasonably easy to hide under flowy shirts and sweaters in this type of weather. It's the summer that really poses the vanity issue. I haven't worn a bathing suit in years. I am found donning shorts once every two months maybe. What silliness. Who cares anyway? It's ridiculous. I wish I was more uninhibited about small things. Why do I have to be so insecure, analytical and overly-observant about the little things? I would rather suffer in squelching heat by wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants than wear shorts or a skirt and be comfortable with my extreme paleness and bit of extra love. What a silly girl.
Enough about that. Many things are overcome late in life, and that is one thing on my list to get over.
Besides, currently it's raining and windy and I am holed up on a cozy bed in a cozy house in sweats, doing my favorite thing. Writing.
I was in the shower (where all of my most profound revelations seem to be birthed, must have something to do with the nudity or something, and when I say profound I mean completely useless observations usually, but occasionally a brilliant thought might be lit,) and began to think about death. Okay, yes, on dreary days I do lean towards being a tad sulky and perhaps even depressed, but I don't think this thought really came from a dark place in the recesses of my brain, just, there have been so many strange, sudden deaths lately. Then I thought to myself, no, that's wrong, it's not LATELY, it's always been. People go along thinking they will live forever, or that they will somehow have fair warning of it, or that it will be in old age, but then tomorrow never comes for so many. There is no time to say goodbye to your loved ones and estranged friends or family. All we have is this moment, right here. Right now. Even knowing this fact, yes, FACT. That death is imminent, and none of usually know the day it will occur, we plod along complaining and not looking around at the world around us, except for the bubble we live in, putting our hand to the plow, one foot before the other, not loving the people nearest to us well enough, not noticing them how they are today, looking at our reflections in the bathroom mirror and only seeing the flaws and not the beauty, breathing, but not really, living, but really not truly living. I know this may not be true of many, but it is certainly true of some, and when we see someone break out of that mold, we are INSPIRED in the deepest parts of our being, and we say to ourselves,"I want THAT. I want to be something. I want to live and reach and leap and believe, and LOVE and see, really see." Take the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty for instance. Normal, almost boring, average guy with a knack for daydreaming. He gets that extra little push he needs to go from ordinary to living freely and taking chances. I think it takes something different for us to decide to take that leap of faith and live life more loudly. Some don't want that, and that's okay too. I am mainly addressing myself and the untapped dreams lying dormant in my soul. Also, others who maybe read my little blog who might feel the same. Like there are so many things we could do to challenge ourselves, to go beyond the norm of what we have grown so accustomed to..But we remain planted in our safe little spot, in our safe little bubble, not wanting to take the chance that we might fall, or fail, or get hurt, or realize the things we loved the most or were most passionate about actually suck too. We are afraid to live because we're afraid to die. Whether inwardly, outwardly, or realistically. My dream, my passion, is to travel, to see Europe in full, to go places, and to write about it. To sample the foods, to smell the different aromas each new place is bathed in, to take beautiful photographs of these places, not to brag or boast or have notches on my belt, but because I want to learn, and I know people are the best teachers, also, experiencing new things is the key to never growing stagnant. I want to raise my children to be free and filled with wanderlust, and extremely comfortable in their own perfectly flawed skin. I wish to give them the room to ask crazy questions that may not be answered in this lifetime, fuel for their imaginations, while still guiding their way as best I can as a mother. I want to be the friend my husband deserves in a wife.
I say this often in my bloggings, I know, that I want to dream and be as carefree as a child. But still embrace the beauty of being an adult who has gone through trials and lived, and has the scars, wrinkles, battle wounds to prove it. After all, there is no regret in getting out there and trying and doing and seeing if the wings we hear so much about (in our souls of course) are real, if they really work when we leap out of the nest. If death IS indeed imminent, why should we hold back from being adventurers and experiencers, for living ridiculously, unabashedly(perhaps foolishly at times, while still implicating God-given wisdom) free? For taking the seeds of dreams inside us that are maybe pushed so far down in unwatered soil that they lie forgotten and passed over, and cultivating them so tenderly and meticulously that they spring to the surface once more and expose themselves to the world in rainbow shades of originality and eccentricity. How? I don't know. I have yet to find out the extra push in my case, but I intend to give a fierce effort if given the chance. This pathetically aged baby bird intends to roll myself, if need be, from the soft warm nest of my safe borders and into dangerous territory where my underused wings may or may not work properly. But I do intend to try. I suggest you do as well.
