What I want. Who I am
Saturday evening. Everywhere I look, there are idealized images of life being thrust toward me. Television. Magazines. Catalogs. Like a sponge, I've sucked all of this in for years and years now, using these images to inform my vision of what "happy" and "beautiful" and "elegant" mean. I've been such a good student, in fact, that I'm not even sure what I want for myself.
I see the beautiful Crate and Barrel and Pottery Barn catalogs and I envision my perfect house, with perfect furnishings (all picked out and coordinated by someone else, of course), then I see a spread on a Hollywood bungalow in House Beautiful and that's what my dream home looks like. The models in the windows at Ann Taylor draw me in, whispering promises that - with enough hard work and sweat - I can look just like them in a few months. Until I see the Boden catalog and realize that it's not classic and cool that I aspire to, it's quirky and down to Earth that will make me happy. On and on and on it goes, and where it stops depends on what I see last.
How can you create a personal aesthetic with simply no idea in the world what makes you happy, what brings you joy? Or, is it that too many things bring me joy? I don't even know anymore. I just want to be happy as I am right now - no changes. I am enough if only I will think I am. The secret is that there is no secret, there is only what we put our minds to and what we commit our lives to.
I want to be happy, and so I shall be. Not every moment of every day, perhaps, but happy with the overall direction and content of my life, yes. The weight will come and go (I hope more of the latter than the former), but this is who I am, at 37 years of age, for better or worse. It's time to stop trying to be what I think is beautiful, what someone else's idea of happy is, and just be me. Fully. Happily. Without guilt or recriminations for what might be.
Here I am, world, ready or not.
I see the beautiful Crate and Barrel and Pottery Barn catalogs and I envision my perfect house, with perfect furnishings (all picked out and coordinated by someone else, of course), then I see a spread on a Hollywood bungalow in House Beautiful and that's what my dream home looks like. The models in the windows at Ann Taylor draw me in, whispering promises that - with enough hard work and sweat - I can look just like them in a few months. Until I see the Boden catalog and realize that it's not classic and cool that I aspire to, it's quirky and down to Earth that will make me happy. On and on and on it goes, and where it stops depends on what I see last.
How can you create a personal aesthetic with simply no idea in the world what makes you happy, what brings you joy? Or, is it that too many things bring me joy? I don't even know anymore. I just want to be happy as I am right now - no changes. I am enough if only I will think I am. The secret is that there is no secret, there is only what we put our minds to and what we commit our lives to.
I want to be happy, and so I shall be. Not every moment of every day, perhaps, but happy with the overall direction and content of my life, yes. The weight will come and go (I hope more of the latter than the former), but this is who I am, at 37 years of age, for better or worse. It's time to stop trying to be what I think is beautiful, what someone else's idea of happy is, and just be me. Fully. Happily. Without guilt or recriminations for what might be.
Here I am, world, ready or not.
Comments
I do know what you mean about liking so much. I would have to have a 9 bedroom, 10 bath house with 4 kitchens and 6 "outdoor living areas" to accomodate everything I think I want.
You're developing your own style -- and you can define it however you want.
And yes, you are already very beautiful. :) Happy Easter.
Chana
www.bunnyburrow.com
Again you've said it perfectly :)
I'm likin' what I'm readin'!
Good for you. {Paula Abdul clap}
The world is always ready when we are ready!
I just loved this post!!!!
I am currently reading, "Confessions of a Reformed Dieter" by A.J. Rochester. The author writes about her journey in losing eight dress sizes. She is so motivational...funny....truthful....and just bluntly honest about her disorder. If you haven't read it....get it. You will be happy you did!! I am loving it!
xx island girl