On my current state of being

The other day NSLS wrote a "100 things about me" post in which she said, "My mom is the happiest I've ever seen her." Me being her mom, it gave me pause, and I've spent some time thinking about that. I'm glad she perceives me as happy, and and it's not that I'm not happy, but I think it would be a stretch to say that I'm the "happiest" I've ever been. I am happy that I am a priest, and I do love many things about my job, my jerk boss not withstanding (and he does have times when he is not so much a jerk, to be fair; you just don't hear as much about them). I love the people in my parish, and I love preaching and teaching and presiding at the eucharist.

But it's no secret to any long-time readers that I am less than enchanted with the place I live. And that I truly loved the last two places that I lived. I was happy at seminary, and I think I escaped a lot of the angst that afflicts many seminarians about being there --being in seminary at all, and at that particular one, in that particular city--all that was good for me, and I knew I was in the right place at the right time. I felt that way when I started my teaching job, too. It was hard, it was a stressful time in so many ways, but it was so good to be there.

And here? Here I've struggled with why I feel unhappy or dissatisfied sometimes, with my longings to be in either of the last two places I lived and loved. I recognize leaving those places as the cost of being able to follow my calling, a price that I knew when I began this journey would be high, but I still miss them. I'm a bit lonely living here. So while I am glad that NSLS (aka LD#2) sees me as being happy, I've pondered what that means about how she perceived me other times. Did I really seem unhappy even when I wasn't? And how does one define or quantify "happy" anyway?

Musing about all this as I showered this morning (honestly I do some of my best thinking in the shower) I came up with some thoughts.

~So much of my adult life I have felt like I had to be in control of things. Almost all of my parenting years, I have been a single parent--either because my spouse was out in a submarine somewhere, or because I really was single. Even the five years I was married to the Kid's father I felt like a single parent much of the time. I started back to school full time when NSLS was 3 1/2 and I've been in school full time or working full time ever since. There have been a lot of good things about that--I've been lucky enough to be able to go to school, to live interesting places, to pursue my interests and I think my kids reaped some benefits from all that. And I tried really hard to make sure that the kids didn't lose out on things--they did their sports and activities and I tried to be involved in what they did. But there was never enough time for everything, and money was always really tight, and the responsibility of it all weighed heavily on me sometimes. And it did make me feel like I had to keep things under control...because if I relaxed too much and things got out of control, where would it all stop? I think this was particularly hard on NSLS when she was in high school and I was not the fun mama at all; I was cranky sometimes, and I was stricter than most of her friends' parents and she didn't like it.

~So what is different now, and why? One thing that has changed since then is that I feel more relaxed. I am truly by temperament a more "go with the flow" person and so it was hard to always have to be the one in charge, the one in control. I only have to be responsible for one kid now, and as he's the fourth one, I can let go of some things more easily (although he might tell you I'm still too strict). I've learned to be more hospitable...I love having visitors now whereas until a few years ago the idea of having non-family members for longer than a few hours sent me into a tizzy of anxiety. I have more time to myself--an important commodity for an introvert like me--which I think makes me enjoy being around people more at other times.

~I've also accepted that a certain level of existential angst will always be there for me. I married at 19 and thought I was all grown up, but ironically, I then spent much of my 20s and 30s wondering when I would feel grown-up: Would it be when I had kids? Or bought a house? Or a bigger house? Or when I got a real job? How would I know? I really expected that at some point I would "arrive," be settled down and that would just be how life was. That's how other people's lives looked to me, but I never seemed to get there. I don't know if this is just me, or if achieving adulthood "sameness" (arriving at the point where you are who and what you will be for the rest of your life) is really just a myth, but in either case, somewhere in the last 10-15 years or so, I gave up that expectation. I live with a certain amount of wondering still about what will be next, and what it all means, and I'm not waiting to "arrive" anymore.

~I'm also surer of what I believe and no longer afraid to express it. For all of my early adult years I worked out my identity in the shadow of pervasive disapproval from my family, especially my mother and older sister. They still disapprove, but I don't care--at least as much--any more. I have friends who like me and appreciate me for who and what I am and that helps a lot. And I've come to appreciate the irony of being the black sheep (well, one of two--but for very different reasons) in my family. There is still a lot of sadness there, but it doesn't make me feel like there is something wrong with me anymore (at least not very often....).

~There are still things I'd like to change about myself and my life...I'd like to be a lot thinner for starters! I've been single for almost 12 years, and while I don't want to "date" and I'm not looking for any kind of relationship, I don't want to grow old alone, so I need to figure out what that means. I wish I could get more done: I have friends who constantly amaze me with the breadth and depth of their interests and activities and the things they manage to do. Sometimes I feel more like a spectator than a doer and I don't always like that. I don't have any great talent or skill, and I think about developing one, but so far I've been more of a dabbler in things. But over all, I am reasonably at peace with who I am. Maybe thats what NSLS sees. And that is a good thing.