I Do What I Want

I haven't been writing much, because I've been feeling jumbled.  Lots of feelings, all swimming around inside, not really sorting themselves out.  Kind of like that old spaghetti game that was made out of shoelaces, but a little more muddled.

However, I've recently been the recipient of a small, yet large, revelation.  A revealing that made all of those squiggly, wiggly feelings at least take a pause, if not sort themselves out altogether.  The women I admire, those who seem like they've got it goin' on, the ones that are doing and growing and sharing - they do what they want.  I don't have to be someone else.  I don't have to do the things that someone else does.  I need to know myself (thanks, Shakespeare , and then do "me".

In fancy language, here's the quote that keeps speaking to me:

In plain english: Do what you want.  Not in an what-in-this-moment-brings-me-pleasure sort of way.  That's terrible advice, along the lines of "follow your heart!" *cue butterfly hand movements*.  No.  More in an "I don't care if you think I'm good enough/meant for this/wasting my time/should do something else, I'm doing what makes me, me."  Do what makes you come alive, to borrow Mr. Thurman's words.

I was reading a story about body image issues that asked the question "how would you define beauty?" and I immediately thought of the sunset.  A sunset isn't "skinny" or "perky".  It isn't perfectly coiffed or wearing a scarf tied just right.  But it is beautiful all the same, because it is being exactly what it was made for.  A sunset was made to be a sunset, and it does it without distraction.  That's what makes it so beautiful.  That's why there are poems and stories and huge pictures about it.

I don't want poems and huge pictures.  But I do want to have the self-assurance and poise that comes from knowing what I was made to do, and exactly doing that.  So now, instead attempting to do what others do, instead of doing what others say I should be doing, I'm going to do what makes me come alive.  Tonight, that's cleaning this house from top to bottom as a birthday present to my hubby, who has mysteriously started to care about such things.  Tomorrow, we're shooting guns and snuggling up as a family (the baby is not shooting guns - being irresponsible does not make me "come alive").  I'll probably work on some research, because solving problems makes my socks roll up.  Maybe that's not what you're supposed to do on a Friday and Saturday night.  Know what I say to that?

I'm still investigating, but what makes you come alive?  Do you know?

<3 M.