I keep thinking I need to "catch up" in order to write. I need to write about our trip to New Orleans and the fact that we bought a dog and a house the week we got home.
But I'm not going to. If the idea of doing it "right" stops me from doing it at all, then it is no longer the "right" way at all, is it. You know the adage "if something is worth doing, it's worth doing well." I disagree. "If something is worth doing, it's worth doing just barely." Not that we should pride ourselves on shoddy work, but there are a lot of things that are worth doing, even if we can't do it perfectly. We are imperfect people and the pursuit of perfection should not stop us from the good.
Today I want to write a sort of "stream of consciousness." Things I have been thinking and mulling over and it always helps me to write/talk it out.
In 3 1/2 months, Dave is done with residency. That is not very long. Our entire married life has been a series of stepping stones: Bachelor's Degree, a couple interim years, Med School, Residency. It has been a wonderful journey so far. We have made dear friends and had so many wonderful, unique, meaningful memories. It hasn't always been easy, but it has been good. I think the most difficult thing about residency for me has been that it felt like a "waiting place." Med school/Vermont was an adventure. This has been a time of long hours, a time of stretching myself (and often coming up wanting) and a roller coaster of emotions. And for my busy, energetic sense, it has felt like lethargy. Like I'm trying to get somewhere and I'm walking through mud and I just have to wade through it and there isn't any other way. I have found myself living in the future way too much.
"When we get through this first year, then I'll be happy."
"When I know where we are going to move, then I'll calm down."
"When we get through this hard stretch, then things will be better."
"When we buy a house, then I can be present."
But, here I am, knowing exactly where we are going to move and I have found, much to my dismay that I'm still just waiting, still desperate to move on, still aching for some future thing. "How do I want to decorate my house?" "How do I want to design the landscaping in the backyard." "What do I want to study when I go back to school?" All of these future decisions keep me from living the moments right now.
At the same time, thinking of my decade old daughter and how middle school is looming and I'm all like "what? No! Time, slow down." My "early motherhood" years are slipping through my fingers like sand and the tighter I grasp the faster it seems to move.
These two things, seeming to contradict each other, taking up space in my head and heart and making me, frankly, dissatisfied and angsty and unmotivated.
I heard THIS song and reread THIS poem this week. They have, in some ways, reset my heart a bit. Holy Bondage. That is what I have chosen. Someone said to me recently that the key to this contradiction in my head and heart is gratitude. I think she is right. Gratitude for the moments and experiences that I have today.
I am not there yet. I still feel dissatisfied and angsty and unmotivated. But there have been moments where they melt away and I feel gratitude and joy.
And now, the laundry awaits.
