Peter Pan Syndrome

I've realized recently that I take myself seriously far less often than I used to. I've gotten into the habit of a sort of whimsical approach to life that leaves little time for any constancy of purpose. Of course, I still have the same aspirations, but I really have to dig much deeper these days, to draw strength and action from them.

The reason is disdainfully obvious, of course. I no longer have any excuses to play with. I'm a proper adult whose life is in her own hands, as I have been for 5 years. However now, the stakes are very high.

That idea terrifies me sometimes.

It leads me down this easy path of whimsy and flight of ideas that gives me some excellent conversation starters (I am confident that the former wallflower, goal-oriented, painfully shy me could talk the ears off the most stoic Pashtun warlord or high school mean girl) and a feeling of unlimited freedom and possibility.

But where am I really, now that my whole approach to life has changed? The things that centered me, like career, school, achieving things are now not the only things that I find at the center of my life. Friends have become immensely more important. Family has become so much more important in a more genuine, less need-based way. The interests that I generally suppressed or put on the back burner in pursuit of academic achievement, now push their way to the front. Even at the 11th hour, when they really shouldn't.

If I look at all this optimistically, I'd definitely say that my life has become far more colored and rich. It bursts with things to be done, places to go, people to talk to, music to hear and things to learn. I have so much more to live for now, than I have ever had.

While all the above is wonderful and I'm eternally thankful to whatever power helped to arrange the above (some strange amorphous God like entity), I'm also disappointing in the lack of discipline I show these days. I'm also disappointed in the part of me that still hangs on to the self-destructive belief that I'm just not capable of taking for myself everything that I've ever wanted.

I am so happy these days. And complacent.

In the past, I'd have waited to figure out what was wrong, to work myself up in a fiery speech of resilience and self-patronage and worked zealously for a time.

Now, though I still do this from time to time, I mostly save the theatrics for friends in need or the hungry insecure part of myself.

In all honesty, I don't want the drama anymore. That isn't what I want motivating me. I don't need grand ideals and inspiring rhetoric. I just need to know that when I want something and have the courage and discipline to get it, I can live every day in fulfillment of that goal. That's really all I need to be happy anymore.

Sadly, I've been getting in my own way a lot of late.

I don't know if its the lack of courage, discipline or goals, perhaps a disappointing combination of all three, but I just need to grow up in some arenas of life.

The whimsicality can stay, but I guess it needs to be brought into check and not take over.

The Squirrel Council - A Tribute

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” - Anais Nin

When there are a million thoughts running through my head, how do I pull the right string and spin one of them into a blog post worthy of my readers' time and interest?

When my ever abortive, scattered, entirely non-linear "thought" process, my penchant for SAT words 7 years after the fact, and my entangling sentence structure blocks a smooth way forward, who rises to the occasion and saves me from myself?

I begin a sentence and by the end of it, find myself at the the opposite end of thought process. I argue and counter-argue at the same time that my mind whizzes through ten million solutions.

My taste for theater bemusedly labels this perpetual Brownian motion, 'genius' and sometimes, 'madness'.

My friend's call it 'The Squirrel Council."

Whatever it is, it's the engine of my soul.

I have no idea what the above sentence means. It's counter-intuitive and not even in an ironic or clever way.

You see what I mean?

However, I was trying to make a point before I erupted into that horror of a sentence. Apart from the judgement and labels and my fear of it's entropous nature, The Squirrel Council is what defines me. From its strange and unpredictable depths comes the amorphous

solid, the woman who is perpetually on not one, but at least five tangents.

Some of those journeys end badly. Like my ill-fated venture into sewing stuffed-animal monsters that created 'Horrible Little Guy AKA Robespierre' or my need to prove my worth as a team player by "excelling" at Basketball (which resulted in two fractures - though I'm not convinced that this story is over).

Most of the tangents continue on, sometimes meandering away to look at the flowers, before re-embarking on the trudge forward.

At some, not so wonderful parts of my life, the past three years for instance, I've fallen off all my tangents and seated myself neatly at the table of my own private reality. Entertaining as it was, it left little room for moving forward from things that I needed to leave behind.

But even in those last three years, while a part of me sat smiling placidly, frozen by good fortune and fear of losing it, life continued.

The Council has pushed me forward, not absolutely or chronologically. Sometimes in one dimension, and definitely not in another; jaggedly. Partially. Relatively. I've been self-possessed and mature in some realms, emotional, quelled by feeling and childish in others. The past, present, and future mingled and pulled me backward, forward, sideways or fixed me in the present and more often that not, the past.

A million thoughts have run through my head and I've nearly never pulled the right string, but yanked at the four that presented themselves and tangled them with all the others.

My ever abortive, scattered, entirely non-linear "thought" process has blocked a smooth way forward, and I stayed where I was in that knot of inexpression, longing and resentment.

All of this has happened before and it will happen again.

But whatever happens, this is where I am today. Where The Council has brought me. To complete imperfection.

Hopefully someday, to completeness in imperfection.

And that is the person who raises her head occasionally and saves me from myself.