I've taken after my mom. I have her wide hips, catish nose, and explosive temperament. I also tend to care for others, for things, more than I care about myself. It's a noble quality when I think of her, but a misgiving when I think of myself. Somehow, I am not sure when and where, I failed to learn to put my own needs first. I live with the conviction that the things I really want are unattainable, and hard or even impossible to achieve. Dreams are indeed to be dreamt, not to come true... And the desire I feel, this desire to see the world saved, the people - good, and myself - happy, the desire to witness something truly extraordinary and to be a part of something great, it doesn't drive me forward. It doesn't make me ambitious. The desire simply feeds my spirit and puts my creative side at a relative ease so I don't go completely insane while I occupy myself with that part of life that is not made of dreams but of solid, material reality. My worst character flaw is that I constantly allow myself to be distracted from the way of life I am destined to lead. And the older I get, the less I dream, and the less I dream, the dreams themselves diminish and cease to excite me. This is what they call the syndrome of the diminished horizons.
Maybe I should go hungry.
Maybe I must stop believing that the world is set in its ways and reject its conventions once more, like I did when I was a teenager.
Maybe I could do without the ready-made comforts and entertainments that are designed to only seemingly satisfy.
Maybe it's time to forget everyone else and do only what I think is good and right for me.
Maybe I would do just that, and not think twice about it ever again.
I tried to do it many times before, in many ways, never quite making it. I tried with drugs, with art, with music; I tried with people and at places; I tried routine; I tried organically; I even tried to limit myself but it didn't work -
- because it's not just one thing that will set me free and make me happy. It's not either, or. It's not only writing, only photography, only my relationship, only travelling the world, or only motherhood.
It is everything.
Life is everything, and even though there are things I would prefer to have or experience more of, and other that I would prefer not to do, the world feels free and life - happy when I apply myself fully to whatever it is I do, when I am fully aware, confident, and when I live without self imposed limits or illusions.
In other words, you will be seeing more of me once again. I just can't stay away because I now realize that I don't really have to. Cliche or not, life is just too short not to do everything. Or at least try to.
***
I walked all the way to Cuesta Park today - Baby Johnny is having too much chocolate ice cream lately and I needed to burn it off. Plus, it's a crime to stay indoors when it's 22C outside. I wrote for two hours and walked back.
Now both the baby and the writer inside of me are perfectly content.
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