The Art of Getting By

You now, when everything comes crashing down around you, and you have no choice but to pretend that its all ok, everything is simply peachy? Yeah. That.

I listen to music to get by. But it just makes it worse.

So, I try to write. And then I have nothing I want to write except for what is wrong.

So, I go outside and take a walk. But then the oxygen just makes my brain work more, and I think more.

And people wonder why when I'm extremely upset, I just fall asleep. Crazy, right?

So, I try to read a book out in the sunshine while listening to music, hoping that if I can't concentrate, my brain will land on something to follow, and I'll get back to simply getting by. But that doesn't work, because my brain can't focus on anyone thing.

Ugg...what a world we live in.

Four Years Later

It is only now, after four years of endless simply doing, that I realize I have gone absolutely nowhere.

When I graduated High School, I had such dreams and hopes for my future. I was going to be the one that wrote that book, sang that song, ran for that office, got that degree. It may sound odd, but I wanted to prove that no matter what I was, I was not defined by home school. I could make it, and I would. The world was at my feet, and no one was going to stop me in my quest to pick it up and take it.

And now I look at my life. I am 22 years old. Unless you count that transcript of straight A's and the transfer paper work to University, I have nothing even remotely akin to a degree, the history degree I wanted and the classes I desired to teach almost impossible to reach. There are so many stories floating around in my head, but I lack the courage to take up that pen and paper and finish one, afraid to see where it might take me as the characters play out in my head. The songs I would have written never had music put to them. And if you're going to run for public office, you have to have a degree in something. The reasons for all of these are far to complicated to even begin to go into detail.

And lets not even go into all the things I was good at and gave up on. Like the violin. Or American Sign Language. And have you tried to act in a public way in this city. Nigh unto impossible.

Anyway, I find myself looking back at four years that were nothing like I thought they would be. And now? I'm full time at a job that will never be a career, about to fulfill my 'calling' as a wife and a mother.  But what happens if I want more out of life? What if I don't want to just be a mom? What if I want to do more then that? What if I want to be remembered as more then that?

Don't misunderstand me. Being a mom is one of the most important things a women will ever have to do. If you screw up on everything else, and get that part right, then your life was totally worth it. But I just don't think that's all I'm cut out for. I have so many dreams and aspirations yet to be realized.

Am I just supposed to watch my kids fulfill their dreams with out ever living my own? If I teach them to dream big and go for it, when I never did, how is that a good example? Do I watch from the sidelines and clap and smile for my children, when all the time I am wishing I was up there with them?

Maybe its selfish of me to feel like this. Maybe its normal. But I feel like I am meant for more then that. Like where I am now is not where I am supposed to stay. Why would I have such dreams, such longing to be more then I am, if all I am meant to be is this? I see my life stretching out before me, and its not what I envisioned for myself at 18.

And how do I even go about becoming what I see myself as? How do I begin to realize these dreams when I'm stuck in a dead end job with bills to pay and no way out? Maybe it sounds depressed, and maybe your right....but I want more out of this life then what I see. And I want to be more in life then what I am.

The Wondering Mind

Poet

The first poem I have written in a long time. Meant to be read, each verse, in one breath with no pauses...hope it doesn't disappoint.

Poet is as poet does

But what’s a poet to do

When there is no inspiration

And no further expectation?

How does one write

When the rhyming doesn’t come forward

The words don’t match

And I can’t find any lose thought to catch?

Easy to call myself a writer

Hard to actually do the writing

And harder still to make gray matter

Black and tangible on white paper

Whoever said a poet had to write

A writer to publish

An artist to draw

A painter to paint?

Are poems written inside

And then committed to paper

Only after we’ve taken the time

To form them completely in our minds?

Do we write them in our souls

Are they there in our eyes

Do they burst forth with no effort

Do they require skill to craft?

Do true poets and writers try

Do they labor over every word

Or is it something that just happens

Without control and equation?

Does it burst out

Poet as powerless to stop it as

Cars crashing and planets spinning

Water rising and fires burning?

Is it as chaotic as all that

Or is it a thing of beauty when it happens

Like the dance of a childs first step

And the suns first bubble of light over the dark horizon

Does God give it or is it simply us

Searching for the right words

To commit to paper

And show to our peers

Are poets born or made

Is language an accident or a gift

Do we write because we like to

Or do we write because we need to?