Dear, I think I Dreamt Of a Murderer, or Actually I did

Twice. I really admire people who have dreams about flying and turning purple cotton candy like dinosaurs at circus boarding schools or ridding a hum backed whale to Egypt. Or any of that. I seem to have trouble with my dreams. And it gives me trouble with the waking up. Which can make me trouble to be around. And it feels troubling, stomping around the kitchen for the first hour I'm awake. It'd be much nicer to delicately squeeze some juice, pet the dog, and do a crossword.

I feel like someone kind of famous said that everything happens in fits and starts. Or that someone I know and love said that. And either way I think they're kind of right. At least here. I seem to get really motivated for really condensed periods of time, and for the other part of it seem to gestate, get nervous, think more than I act, and then wake up one morning so stressed out that I scrub the kitchen floor for three hours, and get really productive for a bout all over again. And maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm more constantly productive than I think (wouldn't be surprising), but so often it doesn't feel like enough. It seems like there could, should be more. I'm willing to bet if you talked to most people who know me, or have taught me, they'd tell you it's true. It's not consistent enough. I think by now I should have figured out how to change that.

You know, I just came off a magical weekend. Louis and I planned a weekend retreat for the first one of us who's getting married. Just the closest five of us for three days in a Bavarian themed town, staying in an A-framed house called the Wolf Den. It was wonderful. it was special, and fun, and full of drunk and meat and polka and everything you might think being surrounded by old people in Leiderhosen might entail. One of the cute-slash-tacky-slash kind of cute again things we decided to do was come up with a series of questions to answer with each other one night, that may or may not have involved makeovers. This is excusable for the following two reasons: One, it was a Bachelorette party for crying out loud, and Two, we've all been friends for long enough now, and get together so rarely, I think we've earned ourselves some Steel Magnolias Kind of Moments.
So one of the questions we had to answer was "What is one thing you always thought you'd be doing, but aren't, and what is one thing you ARE doing but never thought you would be?" Cute, right? I know, it's so emotionally adorable. Just so much so that you want to call Julia Roberts. But the thing is, we went around the room talking about it, and I started feeling a little displaced. A little like I needed to scrub my kitchen floor for a few hours. Here I was, in this house with these beautiful women i've known for a decade (a feat for me), all of whom have known each other for longer, and they are magnificent. I am a swamp monster. I mean, the thing I never thought I'd be doing, but am, is so special and wonderful, I'm not trying to undercut it at all. Not ever. But the "what I always thought I'd be doing" was hard to settle with. I realized that night that it has been hard for me to settle with it for the last two years. A mentor of mine told me a few years ago to "Let to four year old die". And I have done that in so many ways over time, but I think I'm probably still doing it and it is frusterating. The great thing about it was, that having that Sisterhood of The Travelling Emotional Bonding Moment allowed me to see these "women" (are we women now? It sounds weird to say) as the accomplished, assured people they are becoming. The one marrying the love of her life and starting her business; the one teaching children who need a mentor; the one learning sustainability and growing her own food; the one in the circus--the true artist of us all. And me. Not sure where I fit in. This beautiful collection of people, and this odd piece dancing around its edges.
I know how "woes is me" that sounds, and I'm sure everyone feels that way. (really? does everyone?) But you know, fuck it, I DID think I'd be doing something more by now. I do also think I'm doing what I should, but when you lay out the tracks of everyone's life and mine is "embracing happiness and learning all that that means" it is certainly fulfilling, but I'm not sure weather or not that should be the whole. A part, yes, but the whole? Also, if it is the whole, shouldn't part of that whole involve nurturing my "dream" (thanks art school, thanks life long ideas)? It probably should. And maybe it is. Maybe my life really is nurturing and embracing slow productivity and the enjoyment of happiness on all fronts. Maybe I just wish I could see that more clearly. Or that I could make myself do more with it everyday.

I know that the only time I can seem to write is late at night. And I get conflicted about that because the Giraffe goes to bed and I want to be there, too. I know I get caught up in situations I have no business being in, and I'm just trying to make people feel better. I know I communicate poorly, and I'm just trying to do it aptly. I know I make lists I don't cross off, and I wish I had less to look at when I pick them up at the end of the day. I know I have to work by myself now, and I wish I had a teacher. I know I never could have guessed I would have so much to work at. Surprise surprise.

I guess the thing about it is, I got to have this beautiful weekend, and I got to come back to a beautiful thing. I just have to realize what I am. Or what I want to say I am and make it so. Otherwise there are too many days of cleaning the kitchen floor for someone who never had a wish to be a housewife.

That person has a beautiful house, and a beautiful partner, and a dog, and slow prospects. But I look at that person with question.

There is the beautiful party. Full of the beautiful people I have watched over the years. The people I can never quite seem to really convey my Green Fried crying moments to.

The Lover, The Teacher, The Farmer, The Clown, and me. Whatever I am.

So whatever I am, goodnight.
Mama