Showing posts with label midlife crisis. Show all posts
Saturday morning rambling
It's one of those blank-brain mornings. Hubs woke me early this morning, now he's snoozing and I'm wishing I was. Takes me a lot of time and care to get to sleep in the first place. I can't just "fall asleep" like he can. There's no "falling" about it. More like "dragging under." So it's not worth the effort. Since I didn't get to wake slowly on my own, I can't even remember my dream or I'd blog about that. I think it was interesting...
So what about dreams? On some list somewhere I read that people don't like to read about other people's dreams, but I like reading about them. Am I unusual, or was that list writer just a cranky old goat?
Do you know what I hate about writing? It's not how long the business process takes, not anymore. It's how long I take. It's always longer than I think it will be, and then I feel like a failure, even though I'm the one who set the bar on impossibly high pegs. I never adjust my timeline, either. Once the date passes, I just have a constant feeling of lateness. What a self-defeating attitude! To wake up every morning feeling like a failure already because I didn't meet some arbitrary goal and don't have the brains to realistically adjust it.
Well at least I finally realized what I'm doing. I'm always telling everybody else to take it easy on themselves. Well now I'm going to take my own advice, whether I'm feeling like the greatest writer in the world or a complete hack, I can only do what I can do, sometimes that less and sometimes more, but it's always adequate.
I think it's probably less about my goals and more about giving away my power. Putting other people's intentions for me ahead of my own. Trying to live according to other people's standards, even when I'm not entirely sure what those are. I've been doing it my whole life but only recently realized the full impact of it. I think if I can get out of that habit my whole life will open up before me. It's not even a habit at this point so much as a personality trait, I've been doing it so long. I don't have my own standards, I've been living by other people's for so long.
Is this what middle age is about? Finding out about yourself? Throwing off the mantle your parents and husband and friends and in-laws set on your shoulders in the first half of your life? If so, no wonder it causes crises, because I'm just about ready to tear off that mantle, stand naked if necessary before I wear someone else's mantle ever again.
It would be good if I could find a way to do that without bothering anyone.
So what about dreams? On some list somewhere I read that people don't like to read about other people's dreams, but I like reading about them. Am I unusual, or was that list writer just a cranky old goat?
Do you know what I hate about writing? It's not how long the business process takes, not anymore. It's how long I take. It's always longer than I think it will be, and then I feel like a failure, even though I'm the one who set the bar on impossibly high pegs. I never adjust my timeline, either. Once the date passes, I just have a constant feeling of lateness. What a self-defeating attitude! To wake up every morning feeling like a failure already because I didn't meet some arbitrary goal and don't have the brains to realistically adjust it.
Well at least I finally realized what I'm doing. I'm always telling everybody else to take it easy on themselves. Well now I'm going to take my own advice, whether I'm feeling like the greatest writer in the world or a complete hack, I can only do what I can do, sometimes that less and sometimes more, but it's always adequate.
I think it's probably less about my goals and more about giving away my power. Putting other people's intentions for me ahead of my own. Trying to live according to other people's standards, even when I'm not entirely sure what those are. I've been doing it my whole life but only recently realized the full impact of it. I think if I can get out of that habit my whole life will open up before me. It's not even a habit at this point so much as a personality trait, I've been doing it so long. I don't have my own standards, I've been living by other people's for so long.
Is this what middle age is about? Finding out about yourself? Throwing off the mantle your parents and husband and friends and in-laws set on your shoulders in the first half of your life? If so, no wonder it causes crises, because I'm just about ready to tear off that mantle, stand naked if necessary before I wear someone else's mantle ever again.
It would be good if I could find a way to do that without bothering anyone.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Posted by Sherri Cornelius
