Caterwauling

I’ve been examining pretty much everything in my head lately — kind of like a late spring cleaning on the cognitive level. Keep this, toss that, mend this other thing and it will be good as new, etc.

I read an article yesterday on Empathy Deficit Disorder and, while I’m annoyed that this is now an official syndrome, I’m not opposed to just being given a pill to make me nicer to people when I can’t muster it up on my own. 😉

So anyway, I’ve really been thinking. What would make me happy? (Other than a model’s body and a harem of men fanning me with palm leaves and feeding me truffles?) I was thinking that maybe I should take some classes to make me better at understanding the finer points of my job when this crazy little voice in the back of my head pipes up, “Take singing lessons instead!”

That was sort of surprising, since if I’m thinking about taking any type of courses, it should be something that kick-starts my stalled fiction-writing endeavors. Singing? Have you heard me sing? Talk about tone-deaf. Not to mention, I really don’t even hum to myself anymore. (Except that I was rocking some Def Leppard yesterday. Someone actually borrowed a line from “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and the earworm, it buried itself in my skull.)

And then I thought, oh what the hell — why not? Other than not wanting to learn to read music (it might replace some other very important information in my head, which I can’t come up with any examples right now but I’m sure I would if I weren’t trying to hold some other data in there for the short term) and not wanting to, oh, perform outside of my car, I have this on my “to do” list. For 2010, of course, but still. 🙂

It’s strange what that little voice says to me sometimes. I’d almost stopped believing it, though, after it’s been feeding me the same line of b.s. for a couple of years and I don’t see the thing it’s telling me to be patient about, well, materializing.

In my soul-searching, I realized the true source of my low-grade anxiety. It’s that even though I’ve basically just found God, I don’t trust Him. The relationship’s too new — I’m still at the stage where I’m making plans with others so He doesn’t think I’m sitting by the phone, waiting for Him to call. But in a way, I am. And it’s like He sees me hanging around, waiting, and He’s going out drinking with His buddies or out looking for someone else who may be skinnier or cuter or has bigger boobs or something. I dunno. 😉

I guess, religion or not, I always used to be so confident that things would fall into place “someday.” That all the mistakes and near-misses were preparing me for something bigger and better. But I’ve started fearing — perhaps irrationally, perhaps not — that time’s a-wasting. That I’ve got to really take my destiny into my own hands instead of just basically inner-tubing down the river and going wherever the current pulls me.

I mean, I know we do have to make choices and live with them regardless of whether they were the right ones. Free will is a glorious, scary thing sometimes. But I’m always wondering what exactly it is that I am supposed to be doing to take me to that next level, to open the doors I am banging my head against.

And I always have a feeling it is going to be easier than I’m making it out to be, but I’m always prepared for the worst, since I don’t know exactly what the invisible barrier is comprised of.

In any case, I felt sort of hopeful with the idea of learning how to sing. Not professionally, of course. Lord, I took enough teasing in high school — I’m quite over it, thanks much. But that weird little thought reminded me that there’s a whole fountain of creativity within me that didn’t necessarily dry up, but it has in fact been hiding under a very heavy tarp. And just the thought of breaking out of my little rut poked a hole in the plastic.

Imagine what else could burst forth if I went to examine that well a little more closely, a little more often.

Are there things that you want to do that you either think you shouldn’t or you simply possibly couldn’t juggle into your already-overloaded schedule? And are you like me, trying to figure out what has to give — or, what could give — that isn’t so fulfilling to make room for what could possibly change your life or, at least, your outlook on it?

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 8:19 AM and is filed under Existential Meanderings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.