Sunday
Dec112011
This Is The Road My Heart Takes
Sunday, December 11, 2011
I have been feeling panicked lately. I tend to feel panicked a majority of the time anyway, because that's just how this Schmutzie rolls. At two years old, I realized that things changed irrevocably in my absence when my toast became inedible while my mother and I were out shopping, and my trust in all things turned into trust in very little. I realized the truth of immortality on my fifth birthday as my cake was passed on from my grandparents to my parents to me, and I spent the day crying in my room. I was an early adopter of deap-seated, mortal anxiety.
When I went to my first psychiatrist back in about 1993 or 1994, he asked me if I suffered from anxiety. I had never understood what this anxiety I had read about entailed. Was it a sad feeling? Was it an angry feeling? I couldn't put my finger on what that word was pointing to, so I assumed I had never felt it. I told him that I must be a very calm person, because I had never experienced this anxiety he asked about. "I think you have a lot of it," he said. "I think that it is probably with you all of the time, and I think its omnipresence in your life has made you blind to it and its impact." He was a smart man.
Of course, when I make major life changes, this general anxiety skyrockets. It's how I do. So, when I quit my job at the shoe store so that I could work freelance from home full time, I felt both elated and COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT OH HOLY HELL WHAT IN GOD'S NAME HAD I DONE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING.
I love the decision I've made, and I'm fairly confident that I won't be reduced to lining up with my cats to eat out of their kibble bowl, but it's a scary thing to suddenly be your own boss, accountant, manager, salesperson, secretary, and coffee jockey. No one's told me how to do any of this. It's easy to feel like I'm the only one flying this ship from my kitchen table straight into the dumpster just up the alley, because I have no boss daddy to assure me that I will have clients next June.
I woke up feeling quite contented this morning, though, because my dreams have stepped up to take care of me again. Just before I woke up, I was caught in this long dream about my life replayed as if it had been bathed throughout in mediocrity. The pain in it was terrible. Everything was a stab to the heart: my passionless marriage, my high school reunion, my dream husband's desire for children, the suburban bungalow. The concession to convention and necessity over pursuing a more passionate life wove a deep thread of grief and exhaustion through every experience. It's not that that kind of life can't have passion in it, but it's not a life I could have led, and, in my dream mind, I cried for every piece of me that it could not hold.
I woke up relieved to be who I am doing what I do. Having kids would make this more difficult. Having a mortgage would make this more difficult. The burden of a car would make this more difficult. My life, the one it turns out I actually like, is only possible right now because of how it differs from the one I thought my family and culture dreamed for me back in December of 1972.
There are few standards against which I feel I can measure my life, and this used to shake me. How would I know when I was successful? How would I know when I was good at what I did? How would other people be able understand me within the context of the shape my life has taken? This person that I am with my outlaw blend of gender, sexuality, religion, and cultural aesthetics: how do I know when I am following my creative pull and when I am tipping over into becoming the desperado, however gentle?
The longer I live with myself, the more comfortable I become with trusting that I am neither completely lost nor on the verge of shooting up the joint. We're good with ourselves, me and I.
I might find myself panicking at my makeshift desk, because my future has no tidy map, but no one's does, really, in the end. Had I been on the road I thought my family would have mapped for me with a house and children and a car, that would have been interrupted by cervical cancer, anyway. This is how life works. You don't get what you want, and then you get something you never imagined for yourself, and then you get something you want, and then the whole thing gets tossed over for something else, and then you keep going. It's hard, sometimes rewarding, and often unexpected. It's all very messy, and these maps we see charted out for us, the ones we think we see other people navigate better and more accurately than we do? They don't exist. They are a myth our scared hearts would like to be real, but our brave hearts know better.
And so, I'll probably keep panicking, because that's how I do, but I'll do it knowing that this is the road my heart takes. We're good with ourselves, me and I.
----------------------------
PS. Listen to Iggy Pop's "The Passenger". I listen to it when I want to remember how things are.
When I went to my first psychiatrist back in about 1993 or 1994, he asked me if I suffered from anxiety. I had never understood what this anxiety I had read about entailed. Was it a sad feeling? Was it an angry feeling? I couldn't put my finger on what that word was pointing to, so I assumed I had never felt it. I told him that I must be a very calm person, because I had never experienced this anxiety he asked about. "I think you have a lot of it," he said. "I think that it is probably with you all of the time, and I think its omnipresence in your life has made you blind to it and its impact." He was a smart man.
Of course, when I make major life changes, this general anxiety skyrockets. It's how I do. So, when I quit my job at the shoe store so that I could work freelance from home full time, I felt both elated and COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT OH HOLY HELL WHAT IN GOD'S NAME HAD I DONE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING.
I love the decision I've made, and I'm fairly confident that I won't be reduced to lining up with my cats to eat out of their kibble bowl, but it's a scary thing to suddenly be your own boss, accountant, manager, salesperson, secretary, and coffee jockey. No one's told me how to do any of this. It's easy to feel like I'm the only one flying this ship from my kitchen table straight into the dumpster just up the alley, because I have no boss daddy to assure me that I will have clients next June.
I woke up feeling quite contented this morning, though, because my dreams have stepped up to take care of me again. Just before I woke up, I was caught in this long dream about my life replayed as if it had been bathed throughout in mediocrity. The pain in it was terrible. Everything was a stab to the heart: my passionless marriage, my high school reunion, my dream husband's desire for children, the suburban bungalow. The concession to convention and necessity over pursuing a more passionate life wove a deep thread of grief and exhaustion through every experience. It's not that that kind of life can't have passion in it, but it's not a life I could have led, and, in my dream mind, I cried for every piece of me that it could not hold.
I woke up relieved to be who I am doing what I do. Having kids would make this more difficult. Having a mortgage would make this more difficult. The burden of a car would make this more difficult. My life, the one it turns out I actually like, is only possible right now because of how it differs from the one I thought my family and culture dreamed for me back in December of 1972.
There are few standards against which I feel I can measure my life, and this used to shake me. How would I know when I was successful? How would I know when I was good at what I did? How would other people be able understand me within the context of the shape my life has taken? This person that I am with my outlaw blend of gender, sexuality, religion, and cultural aesthetics: how do I know when I am following my creative pull and when I am tipping over into becoming the desperado, however gentle?
The longer I live with myself, the more comfortable I become with trusting that I am neither completely lost nor on the verge of shooting up the joint. We're good with ourselves, me and I.
I might find myself panicking at my makeshift desk, because my future has no tidy map, but no one's does, really, in the end. Had I been on the road I thought my family would have mapped for me with a house and children and a car, that would have been interrupted by cervical cancer, anyway. This is how life works. You don't get what you want, and then you get something you never imagined for yourself, and then you get something you want, and then the whole thing gets tossed over for something else, and then you keep going. It's hard, sometimes rewarding, and often unexpected. It's all very messy, and these maps we see charted out for us, the ones we think we see other people navigate better and more accurately than we do? They don't exist. They are a myth our scared hearts would like to be real, but our brave hearts know better.
And so, I'll probably keep panicking, because that's how I do, but I'll do it knowing that this is the road my heart takes. We're good with ourselves, me and I.
----------------------------
PS. Listen to Iggy Pop's "The Passenger". I listen to it when I want to remember how things are.
categorized in arts & culture, general, personal history, writing and blogging and tagged in anxiety, creativity, dreaming, dreams, free, past, work, worrying
arts & culture, general, personal history, writing and blogging and tagged in anxiety, creativity, dreaming, dreams, free, past, work, worrying 
Reader Comments (33)
I love you. This is wonderful. You are wonderful.
I am so glad for you, lovely woman.
There is no roadmap for the passionate life other than being brave enough to follow our hearts... Thank you for reminding us of what really matters.
A. You have great taste in music, lady.
B. Thank you for this. I'm exactly one month from being my own boss and am fuh-reaking out. The all caps part of your post? Yes. That.
Still, I'll take anxiety over ennui any day.
Cheers to your passionate life. Keep up the amazing work. :)
also, Hanna Joy Curious; "there is no roadmap for the passionate life other than being brave enough to follow our hearts.."
I love it. I just wrote it on my chalkboard along with all my other inspiration :)
Gorgeous.
One of my favorite things about spending that time with you was knowing for sure that we're in some very similar places that don't really look the same at all. This road is the best one yet, even if it's one of the most difficult.
I just think you're one of the best people I know. I'm so happy to be knocking around out here with you.
This is so lovely. My path is very different from the one I imagined when I was small and the one I imagined in college and the one I imagined five years ago. It's good. Unimaginable but good.
My god this is so powerful and true and real. Just like you.
XX
i think maps serve best to tell us where we are happiest going off-road. sometimes, even with the house and the kids and the car, i feel like i'm living like that, by the heart and not the map, and it is good. also panicky. still good. other times, those commitments eat up so much of me that the parts of my heart not tied up there start to scream like dying things.
the inner desperado. ha. i am loathe to let go of mine entirely. i think s/he makes me MORE, somehow. but yes, in check is good.
Beautifully written, as always... anxiety is a normal part of life for many of us, including me, at least as close as we get to normal.... congrats on your exciting new path!
I, too, have recently left my safe, secure employment for the chance at fulfilling, independent, but far less secure work (coupled with cross-country move... into a really old trailer). A few months into it, I could really use some dreams like that. This was lovely.
Now, excuse me while I go throw rocks at the squirrel trying to burrow through the roof of my single-wide...
Everything begins with an undoing, doesn't it?
Thoughtful and adoring you. xo
Beautiful post. And relatable as always. At the risk of filling up your comments stream if I might mention my own recent existentialist crisis:
I left a job I was good at and rewarded for. I've spent three years regretting leaving. Two months ago we found ourselves possibly going back to that life. It would be good money. But at what expense? The specifics of the job were nerve-wracking. I was supposed to be extroverted, and be happy to drop everything every time the phone rang. To wear a fake smile and pretend to care about things I didn't.
The decision should have been simple but I had trouble walking through the logistics of making it happen. Eventually I realized that if a job that I'm good at but don't enjoy isn't worth doing for good money, that means everything everybody has ever told me isn't true for me. "Work hard at a job you hate because the money is good and that will make your life easier" isn't going to work for me. It was like lightning had torn the sky apart. I had trouble breathing. I couldn't write anything that wasn't heartbreaking. I had trouble bringing myself to cook. I'd take long showers and empty the water heater because that's how long it took me to get my sobbing under control. Even everything you read about making big decisions suggests that the right decision will be easy and the wrong decision will be fraught with difficulty--a path of least resistance theory--didn't work because I knew it was the right decision but it felt so wrong, so hard.
It's a terrible thing to believe everything everybody tells you about who you are and what your life is supposed to be for thirty years and then realize it's not true. But at the same time, it's pretty amazing to suddenly get a glimpse of who you are, not who they all thought you should be. Do I still freak out about my decision? Constantly. But I'm starting to think that the freaking out might just be me going through the motions. That's a lot of habit to break. A lot of believing things that I assumed were true because the world said them and at the time, surely, they must know better than me.
Good luck, and thanks for taking us on this journey with you.
I love Iggy Pop.
And I have a lot of what you have...but more than anxiety is my fear.
My terrible fear freezes me.
Why am I so afraid to try ??
Just.Try.
I love the way your posts have been lately, Schmutzie.
You are leading a great path in your life. You know who you are and you are content with all around you. Smile and a hug.
"I might find myself panicking at my makeshift desk, because my future has no tidy map, but no one's does, really, in the end." <--- The longer I live, the more these words hold true. Even for those who seem to have it all mapped out, one never knows what life will hand you from one day to the next. Sometimes life is so terribly cruel when it takes that map and crushes it, and other times it's a gift in disguise.
I am really good at reading maps. On all the road trips, I am the navigator. It's what I do. I have an internal compass and I can pretty much always find North (except in Portland OR, they have two Norths and this messed with my head). Real maps. My life map got trashed at birth. I have followed a path that was easy, a path that was obvious. And while all our friends were settling down and having babies and buying houses, Chris and I were still stumbling around on this random path.
Most of those things I don't want, but I do want a home. My own roof over my head and we have that now. And I'm happy. I don't think you need a map if you have some idea of the direction you want to go. There's no map to Happy. But it sure can be scary sometimes to just trust that what ever path you've chosen is going to actually lead you to the place you want to go.
What I like most about you, Schmutzie, is your honesty and self-effacing nature. You keep it real all the time. Happy to hear your new independence is working so well.
Rosemary
I love this post. Have just found your blog and will be back to follow your journey along. The part about how you start off in one direction, life hands you something you didn't ask for, then you get something you want, and then it all gets tossed into the fan, and you just keep going...I love that. It is so true! Thank you.
thank you.
It takes a lot of courage to carve a unique life that's true to ourselves and is only possible when we have a keen understanding of who we truly are. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm keeping the target in my sites.
I feel like most of what you've written since we left one another in our respective places is a furthering of the conversation we began when you got into the car.
This is not to say I think you are writing to me or for me, per se, but that you are continuing the dialogue that we started there, pushing it further outward and involving others....as we damn well should.
That picture is so loaded for me. I love it. I want a print of it. I'll never be able to smell berry-laced tobacco again and not want to weep with the bigness and profundity and haphazardness of us all. /cheese
Anxiety is a motherfucker.
I only learned about it as an adult and, before that, just always assumed it was "normal." That we all confused vacuum cleaners for witches, thought breast buds were cancer tumors and lay awake at night thinking the walls, blankets & stuffed animals were suffocating us.
Best of luck on your brave new chapter!
One day, I will slap Anxiety right across her smug face and do what it is you're doing. Until then, I'll keep coming back to this specific post when I get scared and remember to be brave. Thanks!
Anxiety sucks - I always thought that I tended towards depression but recently realised that it's anxiety. You mean not everyone feels this wound up all.the.time??!!!
I love this: "you don't get what you want and then you get something you never imagined for yourself". Yes and yes. And then sometimes what you think you want, you realise when you get it that it just ain't it.
I think that part of the answer is finding your own tribe, whether it be by blood or chosen - people who are kindred spirits who will be there when things blow up. And who "get" the type of life you are trying to live. Who understand and appreciate your values and your quirkiness and crankiness.
Finally, really really following your heart in an authentic way that is not a reaction to someone else's values or beliefs is the only way to go. Life IS short and it's a cliche for a reason - it's true.
"The longer I live with myself, the more comfortable I become with trusting that I am neither completely lost nor on the verge of shooting up the joint. We're good with ourselves, me and I. "
I love your writing. Stuff like this is the reason I check your site on a daily basis. Thank you.
stunning. beautiful. exact.
As a woman who finds anxiety her primary emotion (I think we all tend to drift to one extreme or another), I am mesmerized by your thoughtfulness.
Life is so scary with a map (which is only conceived anyway)...so go for it! good luck to you -
First of all, that is a great photo of you. Second, I love when you get introspective like this, because when I read these posts I just nod my head and agree, or sometimes just surrender to the fact that you are right - we don't get to choose our paths, and sometimes it turns out better this way.
This is pretty amazing. It is amazing to have the life you want but maybe more amazing to want the life you have. OK, I guess when you have one, you have the other. Er...
Anyway, hooray for you not letting fear decide. And no suburban thing--although a bungalow does sound kind of cool. But dang, not a mortgage. I have a mortgage. I told myself never to do that for just the reason you mention and then I forgot! You are so smart, woman!
This is such a real look behind the curtain of doing things your own way. Love this.
You amaze me & inspire me. I love your beautiful mind. Don't ever stop the awesome that comes out of you. You're making a difference just by voicing your fears & facing them. Thank you for that. Big hugs to you from Asheville.
I gave up several "normal" things in life in order to pursue a life more like me. It's not completely unconventional, but it's different than the norm around here. We don't have new cars, or a mortgage, or take two-week long vacations every year. But we are doing what we love, and that means more to me than being normal.
It also means less anxiety and less trips to the therapist.
I love The Passenger. Great post, as always, and one I can very much relate to :)