I hung up the phone and felt this welling up in my chest that took all I had in me to force it down. Tears were right there wanting to spring. Often after I talk to my daughter, I go find Lou and tell him about the latest adventures of our NYC girl. This time, however, I sat there alone with the TV blaring whatever it was I was anesthetizing myself with and just stewed. I was freaking jealous! Not jealous of my daughter and her amazing life she was etching out in NYC, I was jealous of two people she had casually mentioned. People I don't even know! One was a fellow that was at a recent holiday party wrote freelance for The New Yorker..."Oh, interesting, Lou and I just ordered it online last night." was my reply. Then she went on to tell me how when she was talking with this young fellow she congratulated him for his success at such an early age, 24 I think she had said. I had commended her on being able to say that to people who are successful and not just pretend it was such an everyday occurrence for someone that young to have such a great job; making most of their money from freelancing for the New Yorker! Then as we talked our conversation was interrupted by a voice I heard her greet on the street, as she had called me on her cell phone on the way to run errands. This woman had just had a book published after blogging about it online. She had the book tour and her book was now on sale at Barnes and Nobel. She too was young! The green monster grabbed me around the throat! I asked my daughter what her book title was and she mumbled the reply, I asked again, trying desperately to sound interested and not annoyed that she would say it so fast as she usually does; as if I am not important enough to know the details, just important enough to know how important her life is...really that is bitchy, but I was in a bitchy mood! The third time I got only the middle word out of her and didn't dare to ask again for fear of turning this conversation into an annoying moment for her that could come from her certainty that I was a confirmed nerd and idiot. Which I feel like I am most of the time when I speak with her these days! Then my daughter said the worst thing; well the worst thing she could have said on that day when I was in "a bitchy because my life is boring mode," with the green eyed monster sitting on my chest poking his finger into my sternum! She said "you probably don't know what that means anyways!" Ok.....deep breath...I kinda knew, but her words made me doubt that I knew anything at all. I hung up as quickly as I could then googled it and sent her the URL with the subject line: "nothing new under the sun!" So there! Then I googled the only word from the book title I could get out of that annoying conversation and with the little I knew about the author I actually think I found the book she was talking about. "Psssh! I could write something like that!" I thought, but I never have and why? The difference between that young girl and me wasn't just years it was passion. I read a few excerpts on Amazon.com and it was the unashamed passion and refreshing cynicism for the subject that drew me in, not the subject...which is as old and dusty as the hills. I didn't order the book yet, but I probably will.
What do I have passion about? I have passion about telling the truth and hearing the truth from other people. I have passion about loyalty and I have passion about paying my bills. What else do I have passion about? I am 57 years old for God's sake! I have passion about writing. But I need to have passion for something to write about it!
Well, I did have a clue....I just listed them above, but I didn't think any of those things were worth sharing. Why not, I thought....then it occurred to me that life had given me an opportunity, by being jealous of a couple 24 year olds, to take a look at what I wanted, really wanted. Not what other people wanted, not what my husband wanted, not what my relatives wanted, not what my kids wanted, what I wanted. It was a new concept and an uncomfortable one at that!
I fearfully allowed myself to think about what I have passion about for the first time in my life. What dreams do I have? I spend so much of my time worrying about juggling finances, worrying about retirement, how we can get back to California. This wasn't about wanting: a new house, a new pair of shoes, a nice gift for my kids or a vacation for my husband, this was about me....whoa...that is so foreign! But I did it for a day, a whole day.
I had been reading "The War of Art." I am almost finished with the third go around with that book and something new keeps jumping out at me, it seems, when I need it the most. I have been writing every day since September, but I have only been doing it as a hobby...an hour or so a day. I picked up the book and read another chapter and right there as if by design Steven Pressfield says to just show up to write as if it were your job then the Muse will honor your passion. So I did! The next morning I sat down at 9am and wrote until 1:45 pm....first time in my life I had ever done that.
Sure I wrote essays for college, poetry for assignments and letters I write once in a while, but this was different. I wrote about the past five years we have been in Florida because it has been a roller coaster ride from beginning to end. In essence I attempted to make some sense of my life by recounting the crazy last 5 years.
The Cliff notes version:
2003 Summer- I marry Lou Keister in Calif; only child of Allene and Louis Sr.
2004 Spring-we buy a house close to my office; Lou leaves his job of 20 yrs to work on new house
2005 Spring- his mother, in Florida, is diagnosed with lung cancer
2005 Summer-I am sick out of my mind of the insurance business I say we should go be near his mother; sell my family home I still own in the mountains, but just close up the new house near the office.
2005 Fall- we're off like Mr. and Mrs. Joad from the "Grapes of Wrath"
2006 Spring- come back to calif for 6 months realize his mother is going to live forever and we have no job and cannot live with her another day
2006 Fall - we buy a house in Florida near her house so we can take care of her; start looking for work
2007 Jan-no work to be found so we take our retirement and buy a machine shop, Lou had been a machinist for 35 years at that point
2008 machine shop pays us back for our investment about 80%
2009 machine shop pays us back again about 110% whooo hooo things are looking good
2010 Winter-Lou's Mom passes away, we rent an apartment closer to the shop and turn our home into a vacation rental
2010 Summer-vacation rental is a disaster; people are pigs, we can't deal with it. All 3 of our kids are making their own way financially and we are just the two of us for the holidays.
2011 Ok, here we are just the two of us and I am totally lost. I have been planning, caring, putting out fires, juggling life for everyone including myself and now all I have to do is get up, exercise, clean house, plan meals, shop, bank, go the the shop to have lunch with Lou and watch TV in the evening. I am dying here!
Kids don't call because they are busy with their lives. I am happy that is the case. I think maybe I want a pet....that seems too much of a bother. Our friends in California are drifting away....No one, but Maggi has made the effort to visit....the kids all have visited several times though. We have one couple we have sort of become friends with, but he grabbed my ass one time after we had dinner together and it took away all desire to hang with them anymore! It is just the two of us on this big lonely planet of our lives. I am not content anymore and I am beginning to grouch at Lou for no reason. He has something to do all day and I do the maid service! Well, at least that is how it feels sometimes! I decide that I am going to do something wild and crazy like write! So I am.
I am home from the dentist with my lip and tongue not working, writing in my lovely living room and thinking I would much rather be on a sailboat sailing around the world right now. That is my passion, sailing to far away places! Whenever I talk to Lou about that, he always says he'll email me a lot while I am gone.....so what would a year apart make of our marriage. Is it strong enough to handle it?
Sometimes I am convinced that Lou will always be a bachelor in his soul. I actually like that about him and it gives me some comfort knowing he knows how to take care of himself, he did it a long, long time before I showed up. He doesn't share a bathroom with me, he has his own "train room" he sleeps on the couch half the night because he wakes up a lot and is afraid to wake me. I have always seen these things as endearing and livable; never have I been threatened by these indicators of bachelorhood. But leaving for a year, that is scary, but when I sat down and went over what it is that I have dreamed about in my life it has always come back to sailing. I don't want to break trans Atlantic records or circumnavigation times. I just want to be on the water, sleep with the rocking of the boat at anchor and catching my dinner from the sea. Sailing along with rainbows over the islands and dolphins at the bow. (I have experienced that!) The idea of learning to read charts, learning celestial navigation and making my way from Tampa Bay to New Zealand (where hopefully Julie and Bryce will still be living!) , that is what makes my heart race and my palms sweat, not out of fear but out of excitement!
I have been saying for years even before I met Lou that when I sold the insurance business I was headed to the Caribbean to wait tables and live on a boat....I wouldn't even want to wear a bra! (most people would be appalled by that, but it sounds so lovely) I want to own one pair of cut offs, one sundress, and a windbreaker and about 10 bathing suits. That's it! I don't want to own much! A 25 foot boat would be fine. I would tear it down to the bulkheads to make sure it was watertight and seaworthy and put enough equipment on it to stay healthy and safe, but nothing more. I would be fine to do it alone.
Steven Pressfield claims that providence takes hold once you make your first step of showing up. I wonder if even writing about doing that could open the portals for the Muse to enter and actually take me there. I'd like to experiment with that.
So dear cyberspace....stay tuned for the Adventures of Eileen..
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