Category Archives: Social Science

The Tribulation of a Bourgeoise

The curse of curiosity is that it causes one to spread attention too thinly. I’m feeling it. I’m feeling rag-tag, superficial, scattered. I want too much, want to do too many things, and wind up doing some of them some of the time and never become excellent at any. Which does the dilettante want to do today? Knit? Draw? Take photographs? Write poetry? Memoir? Read? Garden? Exercise? Homemake? Save the world? (Several years ago I had the harebrained idea that I wanted to re-learn to play the recorder. I’d learned in elementary school and was given a soprano recorder in high school. My sister gave me sheet music for Christmas in 2000. I didn’t pursue the goal.)

My appetite is too large. Notice how the list above doesn’t mention friends? I actually have none here, at least none I get together with or talk to on a consistent basis. For the short time I hosted the memoir writing group, I felt it was rich and rewarding. But then I got a job. (Oh, that’s rubbish; when I was unemployed I still wasted a lot of time and didn’t see a lot of people.) Keeping in touch with other friends in Austin, and with family, is more a theory than a fact. I also spend more time on the computer than is helpful. At 43Things (another time waster of mine), a search for the words “less time internet” brings up 10,468 goals, all of which mention something about using the internet less. (Well, I didn’t read them all, but after the first 50 I assumed this was true.) So I’m not special, I’m not alone. Now what?

I wish I only wanted to do one thing, at most two. I want to fall in love, monogamously and forever, with one art form or life goal. I wish I preferred making visual art only. Let’s narrow that down, even. I wish I wanted only to draw, to really learn the principles and practice it daily to become better at it. Instead I want to also make collage and paint. I rarely do any. Or I wish my passion was only for writing. But what kind of writing? I want to write memoir, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Becoming a good writer requires taking time to read, and especially to read works in the genre of choice. Becoming a good writer requires spending time actually writing. But again, what genre? I wish I could decide on whether to pursue non-profit work or to devote myself to developing a life coach practice. I wish I would commit to exercising regularly, making it as much a priority as eating.

My life is cluttered with unused art supplies, unread books and magazines, yarn, needles. It’s gotten so crowded that I feel stifled. My home is chock full of tchotchkes. I long for clean space, clean lines. I have a gym membership that isn’t used as often as I’d promised myself. Stacks of printed articles on creativity and philanthropy and notes of half-baked workshop ideas crowd my desk.

It is tempting to delude myself with the label of “Renaissance woman” and to conclude it’s just that I’m bursting with life and creativity, a modern-day female da Vinci. Hah! I suspect this widespread interest in too many things is one way I protect myself and avoid responsibility. But protect myself from what? Maybe it’s how I avoid being still, because being still brings me closer to the unknown, and the unknown terrifies me. Or maybe all this busy-ness is filling the void of being childless. Avoid what responsibility? The responsibility of becoming really good at something so that people start to expect and rely on my performance. I also surmise that my scattered approach is an expression of immaturity. If I choose A, this means I turn away from B. “But I don’t wanna!”

So today I stew in frustration and self-loathing (actually, it’s been simmering for quite awhile subconsciously). I know this is not productive. But this is what is. I hate this part of myself. It is a deeply ingrained character trait. I remember in my youth starting projects and not finishing them, and the dismay of my elders over this. Hell, I changed my college major five times! And my decision process for graduate school was agonizing. (Did I want a Master of Library Science, to become an ESL teacher, or become a pschotherapist? I wanted them all. And these days I daydream about earning a Master of Fine Arts degree.)

Do I yearn for fewer choices? (Be careful what you wish for, Kathryn.) No. Back in my twenties when absence of money restricted my options, my devotion to one craft or goal was an adaptation. I devoted myself to earning my B.A., because I knew it was the path out of clerical hell and a poor income. For a decade I satisfied the passion to write by maintaining a penpal relationship with a man. It was a journaling relationship; we each poured out our lives to the other, had discussions, even debates, via pen and paper. Between full-time work and school, there was not much time for extras. Writing has always been necessary. So I focused on that. I simply did not dream of exploring visual art, for example. Ah, but now, with a better standard of living, I have been able to afford to explore. No, I don’t wish for fewer choices. I wish for the fortitude, the strength of character, to choose a path and devote myself to it.

What to do?

Taken By Surprise

Grief is a strange thing. You know how it’s easier to deflect one’s energy to a smaller concern than cope with a huge one? Sometimes it’s easier to fuss about the thing that appears to matter when one isn’t ready to deal with the real issue. This came up for me tonight in a major way. There was an object promised that has not materialized, and a long time had passed (over a year) without much indication as to when it would. I became very focused on the soreness I felt in its absence and over the lack of information about when it would arrive. This came to a head in recent days, from which a good manifested: information and discussion leading to understanding. When I talked with Husband tonight about the catalyst for my roiled emotion about the Missing Object, it became clear tonight that the tension around was masking something deeper for me — grief. Grief over:

leaving behind friends and family in Austin;
giving up my counseling career, which I had worked toward creating for 14 years;
losing two pregnancies last year;
having a wedding smaller than I imagined having because circumstances forced certain choices (what we had was sweet and joyful, but if my father-in-law hadn’t been ill and dying, we would have had a bigger affair with our families converging);
the fact I’m getting older and still am “in flux” with my profession, still unestablished, still lacking confidence and polish;
and ultimately, grief over my father-in-law’s death. The grief is about losing his presence in my life, and it is also about losing the future with him in it.

All these losses occurred in a span of 15 months. Pretty heavy stuff, and it came up at the end of a very long day.

Knowledge helps — both the knowledge about the what as going on with the Missing Object and the knowledge about what this is really about for me. Neither bit of knowledge fixes anything immediately, but the information provides relief and clarity.

I need to sleep now.