I just finished a book I’ve been reading by Elizabeth Berg called “The Pull of the Moon”. It is about a 50 year old woman’s search for self, but it’s really about every woman’s search. Maybe every human’s search. It is beautifully written and extremely insightful about how women are ‘trained’ to behave and how it shuts us down emotionally. Perfect timing for me, eh? I’ve been thinking so much about my emotional state and trying to get to the ‘real’ me lately…
It’s funny. I’ve always considered myself a late bloomer in many ways: shoe tying, bicycle riding, going to college, falling in love. But now I think it’s because I have always been so far *ahead* in the way I think and feel. I was feeling teenager stuff (angst, dramatic suicide, parental disgust) when I was in fifth and sixth grade! I was 11 or 12. By the time High School was ending, I was so OVER it. I was past it. I had BEEN past it for a couple of years.
Perhaps that is just another part of my dichotomous nature. I seem to be fraught with opposites that I cannot smooth into a whole.
I took a road trip about 3 years ago. I drove from Atlanta to San Francisco. It was supposed to be a walkabout, but now I think it was just a precursor to my real walkabout. I feel that I have MUCH more to learn about who I am. I know everyone does, but this feels like a real turning point for me. An early mid-life crisis, if you will. I suppose this is apropos, seeing as how I seem to be mentally and emotionally out of sync with my chronological age.
On the one hand, no one believes me when I tell them how old I am — I seem much younger (purple hair tends to throw people off). On the other hand, I feel much older than I am and I don’t seem to have the same thoughts banging around in my head as most people my age. Most are wanting to have a family if they don’t have one yet, or trying to get ahead on the ole job, or nesting in some fashion. But me, I’m trying to express myself and break out of my emotional languor and do what I am passionate about. I don’t care about money or security — I act like I already have it, even though I totally do NOT. Hell, I’m getting ready to move cross country!
I don’t know what all this means in the big scheme of things, really. All I know is that there is something afoot within me and it plans to show itself in one way or another.
I think this journal has been changed more than I intended.