I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got*
I do not have a house of my own.
I do not have a husband, or wife.
I do not have any children.
I do not have any sort of real career.
I do not have any money to speak of.
I do not have any of the traditional markers of 'success'.
Maybe it is a post-birthday flip-out. Or a reaction to being refused entry to a straight club last night for no valid reason (not trashed, not trashy, not rude, not against dress code). Maybe its just what happens when I am surrounded by a lot of people with mortgages and proper jobs and weddings and baby plans- and that's just the queer folk. Maybe its just not having 'my tribe' around me but...
I could have had the Hallmark card. I had the makings of it: fiance, plans for a 'family', a job in finance. By now I could have four kids and a fifteenth wedding anniversary and a part-time job teaching and my house in the 'burbs half paid off. But I left it because I didn't want it, and still don't. But then sometimes, for whatever reason, I begin to feel insecure, wonder what I am doing with my life -- the script gets re-started and suddenly I am crying over breastfeeding and real estate agents and wanting a share portfolio.
Which is awful, and silly, because this is actually what I chose to do BECAUSE ITS WHAT I WANT. And it serves me well:
I have the gorgeous Monster.
I have an amazing family and unconditional love.
I have a spectacular set of loyal, creative, dynamic and generous mates.
I have an amazing queer community across the globe. And an artistic one too.
I have enough money to survive comfortably, for the most part.
I have the freedom to change location.
I don't have to worry about my public profile as such, or whether my workmates will see me dancing to the Spice Girls at the Court.
I don't have any obligations to children or pets.
I have a good education that enables me to access a wide variety of possibilities.
I have initiative, spunk and wit, and I will realise my plans and dreams in some way or another. I do every day.
And I do not want what I have not got.
*In the words of St Sinead.
I do not have a husband, or wife.
I do not have any children.
I do not have any sort of real career.
I do not have any money to speak of.
I do not have any of the traditional markers of 'success'.
Maybe it is a post-birthday flip-out. Or a reaction to being refused entry to a straight club last night for no valid reason (not trashed, not trashy, not rude, not against dress code). Maybe its just what happens when I am surrounded by a lot of people with mortgages and proper jobs and weddings and baby plans- and that's just the queer folk. Maybe its just not having 'my tribe' around me but...
I could have had the Hallmark card. I had the makings of it: fiance, plans for a 'family', a job in finance. By now I could have four kids and a fifteenth wedding anniversary and a part-time job teaching and my house in the 'burbs half paid off. But I left it because I didn't want it, and still don't. But then sometimes, for whatever reason, I begin to feel insecure, wonder what I am doing with my life -- the script gets re-started and suddenly I am crying over breastfeeding and real estate agents and wanting a share portfolio.
Which is awful, and silly, because this is actually what I chose to do BECAUSE ITS WHAT I WANT. And it serves me well:
I have the gorgeous Monster.
I have an amazing family and unconditional love.
I have a spectacular set of loyal, creative, dynamic and generous mates.
I have an amazing queer community across the globe. And an artistic one too.
I have enough money to survive comfortably, for the most part.
I have the freedom to change location.
I don't have to worry about my public profile as such, or whether my workmates will see me dancing to the Spice Girls at the Court.
I don't have any obligations to children or pets.
I have a good education that enables me to access a wide variety of possibilities.
I have initiative, spunk and wit, and I will realise my plans and dreams in some way or another. I do every day.
And I do not want what I have not got.
*In the words of St Sinead.
Labels: joy, mental health, perth, rambling
posted by Zoo at 11:58 am
3 Comments:
Don't worry Zoo. Those of us with the mortgages and the money and the public profile and the baby plans have the exact same moments of saying WTF, what am DOING? Screw this responsibility and planning and grown-upness.. and then eventually we remember that actually we quite like our lives.
I think many of us (or maybe it's just some of us) are walking contradictions.. and we just find the best 'middle way' that works for us.
As for that nightclub?!
Bah.
I think it's important sometimes to think about the things we don't have, the things we could have had, nearly had, walked away from. By contemplating the different life we may be living in a parallel universe through sliding doors, we reaffirm the choices we have made, and continue to make, that have us exactly where we are. It's the joy of living deliberately, of questioning the "should" and opting for the "want", and making it up as we go along, learning and creating and being so beautifully wonderfully vulnerably alive and open to all the possibilites.
xo
as i said: I have a spectacular set of loyal, creative, dynamic and generous mates. bless you both! mwah!
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