I want my future now.
-petulant stomp. Wagging fingers in my own face.-
I watch the women I wish I could be-you all know the ones. They’re neat, and tidy and hip. Their clothes fit without effort or diets or question. Their hair cooperates even when the humidex adds nearly 20 degrees to the summer heat. They do things-they are successful, and watching them makes me believe they aren’t even trying.
I’m jealous. And angry that nothing falls into my pocket as easily as it seems. That I have a dream, and wants, and stand facing the possibility that they won’t come true, because I am not as they. I want so badly to suck up that inherent ability to just do things, to keep it together, to appear as the adult they are.
I’ve never been that girl. I may have been the smart one, but I sure as hell was not the one you picked to get shit done, not the one that juggled jobs and families and hobbies and friends with the ease of a master acrobat. I become bewildered and misplaced.
I spent years feeling like I couldn’t-years within a void where there were no dreams, no tomorrow, no goals, no lofty thoughts. And I woke up one day to the smell and taste of wanting something, wanting more than anything. I stared at cars driving past me the other day and realized I had never driven in a convertible with the top down, and oh, how I wanted to do that.
How simple my dreams are, compared to those of the women I know with magical books being written, with films being made, with songs written and adored, creations stitched and pulled into beauty. I want to swim in that largess. I want to grow 90 arms and pull together all the threads of who I am and let them find each other, and glow warm and blue.
I want to eat the candy light at the end of a day, and know that I can be these women too. But I look nothing like them, I talk nothing like them, my dreams and eyesight aren’t necessarily filled as theirs is.
Maybe (chewing the skin around my nails, please note, NOT my nails) I really just want to find a way to be me, and move forward with a dream in my own way.
I just don’t know how. Years and years of sad quiet haven’t prepared me for the euphoria of possibility.
Spin Me I Pulsate 
I am just learning to dream, too, and it’s a kind of excitement I’ve never had before. You managed to nail this half-formed thought for me.
You need to know that you’re seen in that way, too, for how you write? You are. xo
Woah. That unintended question mark made that a weird comment. That was totally, like, upseak? Like, OMG?
Typing while the kids around will do that Kate. 😛 Just stop twirling your piggytails while you talk around that sucker. 😛
I doubt many of “those” women would think much comes easily or simply to them, or that many of them are all satisfied.
Thordora, I am relatively new to your blog, came here via Kate and other locals and…it’s funny…. because I don’t see you any other way…except as this UBER-talented writer who is also perfectly human, with everything this encompasses. Someone whose had both challenges and triumphs, etc…
I DO think some people have prettier packaging than others though…for some of those ppl, it takes alot of work and for others it takes less work (I call them bitches) but underneath the packaging, they all have the same insecurities, neurosis and faults…some are just better hidden than others. At least it’s what I like to tell myself as I see a gorgeous woman drive by in her convertible.
I am also learning to dream lately…of something better…of being the person I dream of….if that makes any sense at all.
Dude. Those chicks have to try hard to be all cool and shit. They have this fake persona, because they struggle with trying to find their identity, so they steal what they see on the TV and in magazines as their own. Then the rest of us are brainwashed into thinking that we should be like them too.
You don’t have to try to be cool, you are unique.
Something I’ve been trying to see about myself – we all see ourselves, warts and all through a distorted lens. We magnify what we perceive to be faults and failures.
You and I have talked a bit about this – take my soap for instance. I always think that people are being nice (in a “you poor thing” kinda way) when they compliment my soap and that people do the “pity buy”.
I don’t *see* what others see. I see the faults, I see what it should be. I see that the blue color should be darker, that orange a little stronger smelling, that smudge/imperfection on the container.
Other people (or so I’m told) see awesomeness, dedication and passion.
See what I mean?
Possibility is positively terrifying.
Right now, I’m avoiding going for my placement testing for college… because that’s the next thing I have to do to get registered (for free, thanks to being unemployed) for my first year of college at the end of August.
I know I want this… but I’m so afraid to actually take the steps to make it happen.
And I wonder how many of those “pulled together” on the outside women are really falling apart on the inside? Personally, since I’m ALREADY falling apart on the inside, I wouldn’t mind at least appearing put together on the outside.
I honestly didn’t think I’d have this much trouble integrating a dream, a possibility, into my life. I’m terrified, inching my way in the deep end of the cold pool, little by little.
“How simple my dreams are, compared to those of the women I know with magical books being written, with films being made, with songs written and adored, creations stitched and pulled into beauty.”
Um, yeah. I hear you. I can’t even spell out my dreams anymore… I don’t even know what they are. A night’s sleep? Jeans that fit? I couldn’t tell you what I want even if you asked me.
I held my breath when I read this. It spoke to me. I want my dream. I want not to be so afraid to dream it.
you are your future, now.
i loved this. that is all.