Wherever you go...
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Remember the Sex and the City episode where the girls went to a baby shower in the suburbs? The shower was for a former party girl who had now settled down and was having a kid. The shower brought up all sorts of issues for the women - Carrie was "late" and she wondered if she could handle being a mom (or if she even wanted to be), Charlotte freaked out that she'll never have the life and family she'd always dreamed of, Samantha threw herself an "I don't have a baby" shower, and Laney, the woman who was having the baby, looked at all of them and longed for her single, party-girl days.
I was only 24 when I saw this episode, but still, I could relate. I could relate to every single one of the girls on the screen - would I ever meet someone, would I ever have a family, would I be able to have those things and still have a life? I was searching the way that my favorite TV characters were...and wasn't it nice to know that it didn't all wrap up into a nice little package for them either. That they searched season to season, found love and lost it and found it again. That they questioned themselves and their future. That they made mistakes and things went wonderfully right and horribly wrong. Sex and the City was cathartic. It made me feel less alone in my searching. I knew that even if no one else shared my issues, Carrie Bradshaw did.
That was the year that my first friend got engaged. Some of my friends had serious boyfriends. I was single. I had friends who were already on their way in their careers, others who were waiting tables, and some who were going to graduate school. When I heard a decision or a declaration - be it about love or engagement or work or school - I always assessed my life - was I in the right place, where I was supposed to be? Was I ready for the next thing? Could I still hold onto the moment I was in?
It might be a baby shower or a wedding or a birthday party or a promotion - a big event of some sort. Or it just might be the way the wind is blowing on that particular day. She might look radiant - the way the sun is hitting her hair. He is unbelievably confident in his new job. She's never looked so happy as she does with this new boy. She's glowing in her pregnancy. Those moments, those days where we get a peep hole into another's life and it brings up all the questions we've ever had about our own. I wonder if I'll ever get there (wherever "there" may be). I wonder if I'll ever feel the kind of contentment that I did back then. I wish I knew that if I took a risk, things would be ok down the line. I long for the simplicity of the past. I have 50 million questions about the future. Spin, spin, and spin somemore...always going backwards or forwards...never sitting in the now.
I sift through my mind looking for the answers - wondering what I might be doing right or wrong. I question whether or not I'll regret decisions that have already been made or if I could be doing something differently. And by the way, I can honestly say that I'm always happy for the person that I'm admiring. It's just hard not to compare. I see their life and somehow sets off this feeling that I'm behind in mine - whether it's in love or in career, in finances or in family, or even in their level of self-assuredness, or level of zen.
I know these questions arise for me most when I'm going through a struggle of my own. I see a person in their snapshot moment of life and they appear to have it all perfectly in place and I wonder if I will ever have that snapshot moment myself. What I tend to forget is that I've been the snapshot moment for others at times too.
At the end of the day, Carrie realizes that she's exactly where she's supposed to be at that moment in time. She realizes that there's nothing on her plate that she can't handle and there aren't any questions unanswered that she needs immediate answers to. I don't know if that's specifically what she realizes in the baby shower episode, but I know that, in general, it's what she always realizes. And that's what I know as well...that I am where I am when I'm there. I can look back and I can look forward. I can want to know what's happening next and I can look back and realize where I was. But at the end of the day, how does that serve me? And what would happen if I just sat in where I am? So that I don't miss the moment while it's happening? What would happen if I could live comfortably (or uncomfortably if necessary) in the unknown and just trust that wherever I go, that's where I am? Because at the end of the day, that's the only certain.
Wherever you go, there you are.
Posted byMeesh-elle my Belle at 4:40 PM
Thank you for these thoughts. Thank you for understanding the push and pull between striving for and struggling with the "what ifs" and finding contentment in "what is". Thank you for allowing for, even demanding, a celebration of where I am in this moment. All too often I find myself so busy wishing myself into someone else's moment or onto someone elses path, that I forget there are people wishing themselves into mine. And that's because there's good stuff here. Thank you for reminding me to love my journey because its made me the girl I am in this moment, this hour, minute, second. And I like that girl; dreams and dissapointments, wins and losses, I liker her. Thank you for reminding me that that's ok. I love you!
eat. pray. love.
go buy this book.