The Tunnel's Closing In On Us

It feels like when we are born we have so many possibilities. I remember being a very young girl and swearing to the high holy heavens that I would be a famous singer one day, followed by a famous author. Maybe every other Tuesday I'd switch that up and tell my family I wanted to be a judge. Not for one moment did my parents ever tell me that could or would not happen. Like the loving and supportive parent's they are, they told me I was smart, that I was talented, that I could do whatever I wanted to do (thank you). I wrote short stories as a child, I competed in talent shows. I felt so lucky I was someone who didn't have to choose a future, because I was already chosen. 

It feels that we have this wide open space to imagine we can do and be anything. And then one day that space gets smaller, the tunnel we are traveling through closes in on us. You realize you aren't so good at math or you become self-conscious of something you perceive as a flaw when compared to other kids around you. You don't do as well on standardized testing. You realize that "wax on, wax off" is great in theory, but after you break your hand, your future Karate Kid ambition is thwarted.

And the space gets even smaller. 

We are categorized straight from the get go. For me, my path took me from being a music education major to being an international relations major. The space continued to shrink. I left my passion on a whim to pursue something "reasonable", which then felt even less reasonable after time. I needed to concentrate on something? Sigh. Okay, so I did. International Trauma. But, lord knows, there is so much of it. So, I narrowed my space as much as I could until I was a social worker who specialized in trauma due to genocide and torture, and for the majority of my career, Holocaust Survivors. As gratifying as this career has been, I spend an excessive amount of time wondering where the kid who wanted to be a famous singer went? When I narrowed my space, what happened to the part of me who held the absolute knowledge that there were no barriers to what she could accomplish? Truthfully, I haven't seen her in a long time....but I know she's there. Once in a while, I can feel my heart flutter when I hear a song from Les Mis, picturing myself wholly and completely in the role of Eponine going bravely to battle for the man she loves, living so much of the time in her head (or in my case, going bravely to the candy aisle). I can still picture myself as Belle in "Beauty and the Beast" always dreaming of a far off land, buried in her fantasies, seeing beyond what is before her. And then I see that little girl...innocence, sparkle, faith in the world to see her realize the truth within her. Music will always within me and one day I hope that space opens up again, so I can reach in and bring it back out.

Growing up can feel like everything we do closes the space of possibilities a little more. How many of you had any idea you'd be doing what you do right now today? How many of you thought you'd grow up to sell insurance or houses or be a dental assistant? There is not judgement in any of these fields, of course, but the point is quite simple: somewhere along the way, your life got smaller. On and on through the years we all had to make choices that limited us (most of us anyway --  the people pursuing your dreams? You're the people I compared myself to in my previous post and I continue to envy your fire). 

Maybe I am greedy. Maybe I want something back that feels lost. Maybe I want more than just struggling to keep up, to stay afloat, to worry about the practical every day nonsense. 

The dreams, the goals, the hopes....all still there, however invisible,  however far behind that narrow closure that seems to squeeze us more and more every day. We could believe we have what we need, that we have enough, and our brains can create quite the work of fiction to convince us of this. But, inside, our hearts know more, know better. Inside, your heart will decide what it wants to believe and there is no hiding from that. 

Maybe I am taking the country roads to wherever it is I am going. Maybe you are too. And maybe all of the good stuff yet to come is something we have already had or let go of while that space was closing in on us. I don't believe we can manifest anything that isn't already there to begin with. It took my mom's late stage cancer diagnosis months back to shake me alive again (more on that soon). It took anguish and merciless uncertainty about every aspect of everything I ever believed to be true to show me my life was comfortable, but not fully authentic. After all, I'd left the most passionate, connected part of myself behind somewhere along the way. 

So many times the deep darkness of confusion is rewarded with revelation, with light so bright we didn't know before it could lift us, lift us right up out of ourselves and set us back down, sanded, peeled, and fresh. Maybe that's what this is about today. To ask you all to think about getting back to what you loved as a kid -- the absolute truest, unadulterated kind of love. Maybe it's not too late for me to be singing again or writing (a historical fiction is aborning). No comparisons to others, no judgement on choosing to do things differently. The return "home"...this is what it might just be about. 

Now, to help you all make sense of what I've actually written in this post, I’ll turn to Geri Halliwell (aka Ginger Spice) who said,

“I have hopes and I can be anything. It took me a long time to confront my fears. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm damn well gonna do it! Tomorrow I might be naked with a feather boa, who knows?”

I don’t know about you, but I’m seeing things much more clearly now. Guru Geri -- she should be worshipped for her wisdom and insight. Maybe we should be chanting the mantra together: 
“I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really really really wanna zigazig ha.”


(well, I couldn't be serious for the entire post!)