Four More Seasons For All That's Broken To Mend...

Or also to be titled:
 "But When We're Sixteen". 

Or also to be titled:
 "This Is So Ridiculously Long There is No Way Anyone Is Going To Finish Reading It"

A dear friend of mine turned 33 on the 30th of March which is exactly two months to the day before my birthday.  I've known her since I was 10.   Neither of us were the hooked-at-the-elbow kind of girlfriends and we've gone years without so much as speaking to each other.  But when we do, we catch right up.  And, if I may be so bold to say so, I feel we are kind of soul mates.  It's a friendship I will always hold very dear. 

In our junior high days we went to the same school and so we spent more time together.  We'd often take walks and dream out loud.  She was on the basketball team and I was a cheer leader.  Like typical teenagers, even with those titles we didn't feel that we fit in anywhere.

One time I remember walking in her neighborhood.  We were 14 years old.  We talked about our insecurities and thought about how amazing we could be.  How awesome and beautiful we wanted to be.  We could have it all together.  Be visions of stunning awesome-ness.  The details of how to obtain such dreams weren't really laid out in detail, but we felt it so strongly.  It had to do with perfectly fit and naturally beautiful bodies, along with a sharp wit, deep confidence and talents galore.  We knew we could accomplish it and "when we were 16" we'd blow everyone away.  That gave us a whole two years to make it happen.  We decided we would do it.

And now she's 33.  Which means in exactly two months from her birthday, I will be 33.
Which also means, I am approximately 17 years past my deadline of becoming "stunningly awesome".  What a let down.

My whole life I've envisioned excellence, but feel I have not only not achieved it, but rarely actually even pursued it.  And when I do, I find distractions and obstacles all over the place!  I was reminded of this when I pulled out my guitar the other day, spent an hour strumming the same old songs over and over, never improving.  Never paying the price.

Today I feel so overwhelmed by all that I want to be, all that I feel I should be.
I feel so underachieved.  (Is that a word?)

As I approach the culmination of 33 years,  I feel so tempted to create another deadline.  Always a deadline.  "When I'm 16" became, "When I'm 18", then "When I have my baby" then "When the twins come", then "When I'm 30"  "When I go to the beach"  "When the school year starts" and now I've been flirting with

"When I'm 33".  Visions of accomplishments achieved in the next couple of months and throughout the coming year are swimming through my mind.

Except this time I mean it, I'm really going to do it,  I swear.
Hm.

~Leah's feet, in the sunshine

 A couple of years ago, I was standing in a parking lot with my mother in law.  We had just finished a Jazzercise class.  And she said something like, "I don't have to be amazing anymore."  My reaction was, " but you are so amazing!"  (It's true, she is).

But I knew what she meant. She was talking about this arbitrary standard of excellence we create for ourselves, believing that you are amazing because others look at you in an admiring way; because you scrapbook, or you keep a clean house, or you run marathons, or read books, or whatever.  She didn't need to "be amazing" anymore.  I could see in her face how freeing it felt, to be in that place finally.  She is free to be happy, pursue the best in life, and be her best, just for the joy of it.   At least, I think that's what she meant. 

I'm not sure because I don't think I'm there yet.  But I think I'm getting there, or at least considering it.  I am determined to have a great year, and challenge myself, learn some new things and hopefully grow up a little more.  I'm starting to see how shallow this illusion is, of "being amazing" - or rather getting to a point where I'm finally "there".  At that perfect, amazing place - where I have the ultra fit body AND the clean house AND have the minor pentatonic scale mastered AND help my kids with their homework AND magnify my calling AND sew that dang quilt, AND read the books... AND, well, you get my drift.

It's just not going to happen...not at the rate I'm going anyway.  I'll be lucky to accomplish one or two of those things.  I am SLOW with this kind of stuff.


It's so funny to think of myself and my friend at 14, dreaming, hoping, young and already awesome.  What did we need to prove?

I still want to be excellent.  I don't want to  resign to a life of mediocrity.  I desire to improve myself, it's my nature.   But I'm sick of the deadline.  Or rather, the 6-12 week deadlines to becoming  "astoundingly amazing".  It's ruining everything.  What does that even mean, anyway?

 











So.

I'm 33, minus 60 days (give or take) and  I'm throwing the deadline out the window...for now at least.  And maybe sometime this year, I'll be able to let go of that vision of "awesomeness" - whatever that means.

Maybe.