I'm Set to the Wrong Speed

With the evening wasting away at the grocery store, I began to wonder why the unimportant things take so long and take so much time away from the important things I want to get done. Yes, I want to buy the food my family needs. No, I don't want it to take up precious hours of my life each week. Budgeting makes it take a bit longer. Since I'm budgeting in order to have more time with my kids, I suppose it's useful time spent. It still feels like sand through the hourglass of my life. My Grandmom used to watch Days of Our Lives and that hourglass would always haunt me. I now watch the beginning on occasion, and feel like my Grandmother is speaking to me. She is the one who recommended I be an actress when I was bored with my job in science. If only she had been a rich benefactor like Great Expectations, my life may have turned out much more interesting. There'd still be the wasted time in between, though. Nobody escapes waste. Except, maybe people born a bit more efficient than me. I don't have a knack for time management, and I think I'm actually set at the wrong speed. Others do something and it takes them half as long as me. My impatient children will say "Mommy's being slow again or Mommy's being clumsy again." It takes forever if you keep dropping things, as I always do. I'd say motherhood just has me flustered and pulled in many directions, but I was like this before. People get impatient with me regularly. So, I would like the official diagnosis and a card I can carry, explaining my lifelong condition of having been set at the wrong speed. People will just have to pass on the left, and give me extra time. I wonder if a longer life span comes with such a handicap? Then it would all make sense.

I Wouldn't Conform...If Not for Taxes

As I sit blaming myself for having conformed a bit more than I had planned, I realize that it was in some ways for survival. That's how every society gets people to conform, really. The true nonconformists live on the streets in the city playing their guitars for food, or are unemployed artists doing almost the same. For a short time, when we are little, we are our true selves. As we grow we are molded, painstakingly into adequate members of society. Our parents do it unconsciously, most of the time. Some are quite mean and do things for the sole purpose of turning their children into broken, self-hating souls, but I'm referring to the average, well meaning parent here. Some of them think it's good for the child, and survival is definitely necessary, but it won't lead to fulfillment and enlightenment, which I'm still hoping are human possibilities. Since I moved into upper-middle class suburbia, I've heard a couple of mothers bluntly say that their children are only allowed art and music as hobbies because they will never pay the bills. One wouldn't even let her daughter minor in dance at college. She is very proud the girl "chose" teaching as her major. Maybe that poor girl will get to inspire her students to do what they want with their lives. When I was in school, there were battles between students and the school board over how many electives we would take. We always wanted more. Young people have a natural affinity for variety in their learning. Perhaps the only reason adults don't is because they were pigeonholed as kids. After graduating college, I learned that every educational show I love has an anthropologist narrating it. Anthropology wasn't offered as an elective at my high school. I never knew what it was while applying for college. There is, however, a famous anthropologist who hailed from the very town of my high school. The town is quite proud of her, apparently. Bitterness will get me nowhere, of course. Had I built a career that I loved, I might have waited longer to get married and missed out on my three beautiful daughters. I now can work on a career for myself while educating them on everything I missed. Perhaps teaching them that they can make money through a more unique, interesting career will be the best revenge I can get. But what of the people who don't even realize what happened to them? They consider being bored and detached from their true selves a part of "growing up" or being "responsible". Who has been served by this? Society's purpose is still a mystery to me.

I Am Unexceptional

When viewing various internet posts from other people, I realized , like a slap in the face that I am unexceptional. Sure, we are all unique and special, but I have definitely not become exceptional. My thoughts, desires, and lifestyle are quite similar to everyone else's. At first, this made me uneasy. Shouldn't we all be different? But then, it made me happy. Even people who, in my opinion, are exceptional live a life quite similar to mine. Suddenly, it's not as huge a leap to be exceptional. I am human, so are they. We have the same capacity for becoming exceptional. It's just a matter of focus. Sure, many exceptional people will never be noticed, or get a paycheck or any sort of reward for their work. At least they can feel they've done their best and improved over time. I bet most people don't ever quite feel exceptional, though. That's why we all keep trying. The journey never ends if the destination is just out of our reach. Or, perhaps in all our attempts to become something exceptional, we end up returning to the person we already were and find that it's exceptional just to be a unique human being. Is it too obvious for our human brains to want to consider? A complicated life of struggle is much more alluring.