Like A Virgin

So here I am. 30 years old. I live in a rental one-bedroom apartment alone. I have a futon instead of a couch. My job is contract attorney so I am never doing the same thing for too long. I am single. The amount of pairs of shoes I own is conversely proportionate to the amount of financial future planning I have done. I have absolutely no responsibility except to myself. It cracks me up. It's beyond liberating not to have to answer anyone in any area of my life. I never knew it could be like this. I can keep odd hours. I can do whatever I want. I am living the dream life of a teenager, which is kind of what I am, an adult teenager. I had to pare down my existence to get here, to get back here, I should say. I had to clean out my closet. My hopes and dreams and true self were buried in the back.

Getting past the twenties was key. Even in my twenties I wasn't an "I should be doing ..." person. But I did scurry around and there was angst in the knowledge that I wasn't doing certain things; like I never had the job that I wanted. As I've said before I always compared love and work. I spent my twenties dreaming about finding 'the one' job and staying in it forever, dreaming of days passing like minutes because I was so fullfilled living my passion. Well with all the moving around I did from job to job I never let myself in on what that passion was. And I knew deep down the entire time. But I didn't want to know. It was something that scared me. It was something that had no guarantee of success. It was something that would have necessitated me checking myself in so many ways that I did not have the strength ability confidence or awareness to do. So I kept adding things to my life to hide the fact that I wasn't doing or living the life I wanted to. Change jobs, change apartments, buy shoes, cut my hair, dye my hair red, shopping, traveling, boyfriends, 'boyfriends,' whatever, I made many committments to things that I knew weren't what I really wanted to be doing and now I have cleaned out my closet and simplified my life and found my secret box of hopes and dreams in the back. That is all I am keeping from the overloaded, disorganized closet. When I add things they will be carefully chosen; they will be the right things.

It's hard to throw out your favorite pair of jeans even when they don't fit you anymore. It's hard to get rid of someone or something in your life that has always made you safe but safe in a cloying way; not in a way that encourages growth and finally allows you to fly. And that's where I am now. Trying to finally fly. Trying to maintain focus trying to keep my eye on the ball.

So my transient existence with no stability or security is giving me what I never had before. It's giving me faith in myself. It's fulfilling me. It's making me finally feel stable and secure because I know that I can take my life day by day. I can support myself. Yet, I can change course and it won't be a big commotion. It won't be me accepting another full time job because I think it's the 'right thing' and then waiting for the inevitable drowning feeling I get when I start to suffocate from being in the wrong environment. It won't be dating someone so I can say I have a boyfriend. Right now it's me spending my days using my right hand clicking away doing mindless work leaving me to be the arbiter of how to flex and strengthen and stretch my mind. And I am taking full advantage. I am writing. And that's all I've ever wanted to do. And when I do it, days pass like minutes and I am fullfilled and living my passion. Here I am.