Where's My Windmill?

Today it all seems such a paradox.

Perhaps I'm just in a foul mood, although foul would most likely be the wrong word to describe it. It's sort of like life, the reality and the ideal, the truth and the nostalgia and the fantasy all collide and make me unsteady.

I'll try to put words to it, simply because that's what I do. I put words to the jumble that is racing around under my skull in hopes that it will somehow make some sense somewhere.

I'll start with the weather. These are the days we all dream of. Mild, warm days. Blue, cloudless skies. Leaves on the verge of change. Cool nights pop corned with swift, strong showers. Peaceful, perfect. Apple loaded trees in picturesque orchards. Pumpkins swelling on the ends of prickly vines.

And yet, I'm at odds. Discontent as it were. I'm feeling as though I'm giving everything and everyone just a portion of me and never a whole. In all the conversations that really counted or really needed to count, I've only been half present at best. It wasn't for lack of feeling. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There has almost been too much feeling. Everything has been so close to the surface these days. My feelings for everyone in every situation has been so intense it's exhausting.

Years ago, I used to say I could read people by watching them. Their eyes, their bodies, their words and what they didn't say. It faded for a long time. I was too focused on myself to look around. But I've changed again. My focus is not on myself in that same old selfish way. Even in this modern world of written communications, I feel so much of what's behind those words.

Part of the problem then is all that feeling. It just plain gets in the way of thinking. That and the time schedule of my daily life. Now, I'm not complaining about my everyday here, that's not it at all. I very much choose to have the schedule that I have, but sometimes I wonder what it could be like. All this chaos leaves very little time to think something through thoroughly. What I end up with is a lot of half thought ideas and no time left to flesh them out. Not enough energy to finger my way through them and sort it into something clear and meaningful. It simply remains a fuzzy complicated mess in my mind.

The other problem with that, is if I can't get it all settled out in my mind, then I can't share it with yours. So when we're trying to have one of those conversations, I have only frustrated half formed and half thought out things to share. It's not fair to you and so very frustrating to me. I feel as though I've been failing in upholding my side of these conversations. I feel as though I waste every one's time with these half thoughts. You shouldn't have to try to fill in the blanks in my thoughts, especially when I haven't done that work yet myself.

Add to all this my own selfishness. I absolutely see it for what it is. I've allowed myself to be right back where I always end up. The minutes are all spoken for and then I am frustrated with myself that there isn't time for me to read all the books I want to read, to write all the things I want to write, to play the games with my kids, to see my friends, to craft with all that tucked away crafty stuff, to take more joy out of life without sacrificing the last little bits of sleep that I get. Then there are the days that there is a fleeting free hour, I'm torn by the desire to waste it just sitting down and "vegging out" or to spend it catching up on some neglected home chore.

I know that there are people out there who make it all work, or at the very least put on a picture that they have it all. I don't know how they do it.

I don't know how to do what I feel I must and still do what I want. This isn't to say that I don't often enjoy doing all the musts, I do. I wouldn't give up my family or my commitments, but somehow I can't seem to stretch my hours as much as others do.

Maybe it's all in the comparison. Or that fact that I shouldn't be comparing my life with anyone else's. That's a mighty hard position to take though. I'm human after all.

And so here I sit, on a beautiful fall Wisconsin afternoon. 3 kids to mind, a house to keep reasonable, an elderly hound at my feet, sports to run to, dinner to be made, and here I sit. Discontent and trying to make sense of it all with my silly little pen trapped in a fantasy of how delicious it was to have no responsiblity. How utterly devine it felt to spend my days doing nothing but reading and writing as I was moved to do so.