Originally posted on November 8, 2010 at 5:55 PM
Perhaps my blog yesterday came off wrong. First and foremost, I’d like to clarify: I love blogging, and even though it’s a lot of work, I enjoy maintaining my website. I would do these things no matter what, I believe, so don’t think I have any illusions of grandeur. My main point of yesterday’s blog was venting frustration with the industry, their expectations, and the overflow of advice. I feel like I’m in a rat race.
There are sometimes things that my writership fails to illuminate for me – certain feelings and thoughts that words can’t quite shed light on. Nonetheless, I will try, because that’s what I do.
I feel something that is all but none of these things: discontent, restlessness, ambition, hopelessness, hope, eagerness, longing, aching, sorrow.
The closest thing I can think of to this emotion is when I was in high school my senior year. Senior year was really hard for me. I was captain of our dance team of about fifty girls, and I’d sort of overthrown the system and caused a lot of upset from the people who expected what they expected. (Too cryptic? Ah, delicacy.) I had broken up with my boyfriend of a year and a half, was going through a rough patch with future-hubby-to-be, still struggling with my parent’s divorce and my dad’s alcoholism, and beginning to lose my best friends to Life. I wanted out.
I knew, I just knew that I wanted to go to college out of state. Screw the costs, the homesickness, the starting over. I wanted out of Texas, my life, my unrest. I wanted more. That’s the best way I can say it. I wanted more.
(That ended up not happening, I think for the better.) But the thing is, I’ve always felt this way. I’ve always felt a sort of disquietude in the background. Usually it is soft and pliable, but at times – unprovoked by any real reasons, as far as I can see – it flares up and leaves me anxious, antsy, dissatisfied. I crave something I can’t understand or explain, and I don’t know how to get it. And I know some of you have gone there in your heads, so I’ll go ahead and say no, it’s not sexual. I’m satisfied in that department, thankyouverymuch. It’s something else. It’s almost like I’m waiting for magic. I just want more.
I’m feeling that now, that almost magical longing for something mysterious that never seems to come, and perhaps I’m taking it out on my career choice right now, because I don’t know how else to let it out. I have no reason to be dissatisfied. I have the happiest marriage I know of, a pet I adore, a beautiful house that’s all ours, a career I’m passionate about, and for that matter, a decent amount of success for my level in that career so far. And besides all that, the feeling isn’t simple ambition. So why do I feel this way? Why have I always felt this way? Why do I always want more?
