Mine is a charmed life, largely built around shame. I'm ashamed of the laundry piles and dishes that I'm too lazy to finish in a timely fashion. I'm ashamed of my as of yet unproven ability to land and hold a "real job". I'm ashamed of my discontent in this quiet little Nebraskan town. I'm ashamed of my delight in drinking, with the numb buzzy feeling in my lips and the dissapointed frown on my Alien's face when I'm drinking. And now, more than ever, I'm ashamed of the projects I've left unfinished. There are four costumes, two quilts, one afghan, a squid hat, and a scarf in various states of incompletion laying about my home. My computer contains the skeletons of not one, not two, but three separate novels, with naught but a dozen pages of writing between them.
When you walk the path of the suburban Nebraskan housewife, you find yourself at a crossroads of projects. Pinterest is your planning ground. Facebook is your leaderboard. Competition, albeit generally friendly, abounds if only in my mind. This one cooks three course meals. That one sews historically accurate costumes. The others have started small businesses, plant gardens, do woodworking, publish texts, and (most amazing of all) raise children. When viewed en masse, the Facebook conglomerate puts my small contributions to shame.
Time and again I must remind myself that what I am seeing is just that: a conglomerate. Each of my friends and family members only do a handful of these things. One might have excellent culinary and parenting skills, but wouldn't be able to tell one end of a drop spindle from the other. Some have a vast knowledge of literature and an incredible selection of celebrity connections, but no idea how to keep a tomato alive. The whole is intimidating because it does not truly exist.
I was scanning the social leader board yesterday, when I came across this song lyric:
"I can see I'm blessed if I don't obsess over what I'm not."
This pinned down the feeling of shame for me. I was so preoccupied with what I hadn't done that I was blind to what I could. I can write. I can sew. I can cook, and bake, and crochet. And I can do all those things without complaining about how I can't do those other things as long as I set aside time each day to work on the ones that I'm not vehemently opposed to. Except the laundry. That really needs done regaurdless of how vehemently opposed to it I am.
At the end of the day, I have needy puppy, a malcontent cat, a warm home, a full stomach, and a husband who has promised to provide for me all the days of my life. If I stop obsessing over the things I can't do, it really is a charmed life.
