Engine Starters

Tuesday 6 January 2009

Hey you. Yeah, you. What would you do, if you found yourself at the age of 38, cast rather adrift, trying to rebuild your life and taking surprisingly long to get anything ... well, built? What would you do if you were relatively responsibility free?

No, not the daydreams we all have when we know we don't really have any option of exercising them. If we're talking about that stuff I've got dreams to burn (one of them involves the Brad Pitt airbrushed and sitting on a motorbike that I saw in massive size on a movie screen. Noice).

No, I'm talking about something a bit down and dirty. Something that would both get me started back on this thing called life while at the same time getting me out of my very small little world and focussed on someone else for a change. Somewhere that I can feel part of a tribe, if only for a little while.

I was daydreaming before about such things. I was daydreaming about six weeks in a South African orphanage after putting a tip jar on my blog to raise the funds to do it. And then that's about as far as I got because hope deferred has made my heart sick. So then I started making excuses. 'Cause that's what I always do, and then I end up doing nothing.

I am looking at my life today from panoramic perspective. Looking at it as if it's 20 years from now and I'm looking back at this period of my life, sympathetic, remembering how difficult it was to come forth out of the sludge. Remembering how lonely it is to live in this culture when you're not in the midst of a gaggle of people. Remembering how truly lonely I do feel, and remembering - hopefully - that it was also the beginning of a whole lot of things that I couldn't quite see at this point of my life. And that's sort of about as far as I've got.

So you, if you had the opportunity, what would you do? Just wondering ... because sometimes, sometimes when I've got too much time to think, I feel like my life could just slip, like crematorium dust, through my fingers and one day I will wake up and I will be dead.

But that's probably a bit dramatic :)

7 comments

  1. how exciting
    to be responsibility free and assessing options as broad as the horizon

    holding you in thought and prayer as you contemplate new adventures in 09

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  2. Well, see, that's the thing. Once upon a time it would have been exciting. Now, it's just scary and agoraphobia-inspiring :(

    Thanks for thoughts and prayers :)

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  3. I think you ought to go on a mission trip to Oregon...yeah, that's it! We have lots of patchouli-and-hemp-wearing unshaven-underam types here who need saving... ;-)

    Seriously...wow. That's a big thing to consider. Are you thinking like Melbourne, or, like, Bolivia?

    Lessee, I'm 38, not responsibility free, but can see the perspective about age and maybe wanting to do something a bit less selfless than I typically do...if it were me it would have something to do with babies, orphans maybe, who just need love. I can rock babies forever.

    But you, you have your own inner dynamics...so tell me, what does SUE want to do? Hypothetically speaking, of course.

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  4. LOL a mission trip to Oregon sounds good :)

    Melbourne or Bolivia? Well, my first thought was South Africa, actually. I remember a woman left a comment on my blog a while ago about needing people to help out in her orphanage. I, too, can rock babies forever :)

    But *sigh* I don't know. You know what I'd like? A strong sense of direction. A sense that God is saying, "Yes, go this way." I know how that feels. I know it's not a pipe dream. But is it happening lately? Nay. I am like a vocal horse rolling around in a giant field. I just got no clue :(

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  5. I meant Melbourne and Bolivia as opposite extreme...your own backyard or far, far away, where Shrek lives?

    I really hate to do this to you, but I'm listening to an 80's station and just as I read this comment, it began. I thought to myself, "How apt!":

    "First, when there's nothing but a slow glowing dream
    That your fear seems to hide deep inside your mind...
    "

    **smirk**

    I will pray to the great tye-dye hippie in the sky that he would align the planets of your spirit and chakras of your heart and whatnot so you will know where to go and when.

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  6. Erin, tye-dye hippie, planets of your spirit and chakras of your heart.

    And whatnot.

    LOL!

    Sue, I know what it's like to have that "but surely my life should mean something - God what am I supposed to be doing on this planet???!!!!!" thing going on. I go in and out of that periodically and it's a crappy feeling to be in it, but it also tends to get me off my butt like nothing else. Maybe it's God's way of getting my attention? Lord knows not much else works!

    Anyway, I think the remedy to your situation is those chicken fajitas and cocktails. That always works for my chakras and planets. :-D

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  7. Heather - how does 7pm sound? I think that sounds like a fine remedy ;)

    I guess I'm thinking in terms of those words in Jeremiah, which I really love: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope."

    And there's another verse that I can't think of that talks about things he's prepared for us to do. I want to do something God has prepared for me to do, you know? And I know that sometimes that means really small things in the middle of your otherwise boring day. I don't feel the need to do something "big for God" to stroke my ego. I just want to do ... something.

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