Seriously, do we ever get it? I seem to be having this crisis of finding meaning.
And before I go all introspective, let me just say, it's hard to find meaning when your days are spent in a windowless cave of an office, illumined only by the constantly whirring flourescent lights, at a desk that seriously lacks good design, in a chair that... well okay my chair is kind of fabulous. It's LaZBoy and really quite comfy. But the arms don't fit under my desk so they're kind of torn up. But you can see how my chair is kind of the highlight of my workspace can't you? And my pictures, but that's just because the puppy's so cute and so are my friends.
So back to my crisis.
Most of my day is spent in the aforementioned cave, five days a week. Most of the work I do is tedious, and simple. I have a hard time avoiding the thought that any idiot high school kid could do my job. I don't mean to be whiney. But it appears that I am.
So I ask myself, what is missing for me in this work? The answer is meaning. The next question then becomes, how do I define 'meaning'? I think in terms of a job, it's having eternal ramifications. In other words, whatever I'm doing could change the course of someone's life, to change the course of their eternity. I don't think that this life is what we're made for. I don't think that I was created to bum along in this world hoping for something more. As C.S. Lewis said (rather more eloquently), the logical explanation of my longing for something more is that I was made for something more-- a greater, perfect place & a greater, perfect relationship.
I know that writing is an integral part of who I am. I know that when I observe the world around me and find meaning, I am happier. It takes me working out words, playing with the cadence and the order of them, to find the cadence and the order of my life, to understand each day, to define the meaning. That is what I want to do ultimately-- write my experiences and give them meaning, and maybe write some sentences and paragraphs and pages and chapters that give hope to other people. Because you know, it's okay that we're confused. It's okay that when I came home today I cried and cried sitting on my floor beside my bed, looking up through blurred eyes into my closet. I have cried there before and I will cry there again.
I remember when I was four and my parents had just bought a new house. It wasn't quite finished, but we went to walk through it again, just for fun. They hadn't laid the carpet in my bedroom, but the padding that went beneath the carpet was there, and it was blue and green and yellow. I had a walk-in closet in my new room, with a built-in bookshelf, and I was going to have a big girl bed. My parents were still down the stairs because I had flitted quickly up them in my excitement. I ran into my closet, and I laid down on the floor and looked up at the two church dresses my mom had already hung there. I spread out my arms and legs like I was making a snow angel, and I smiled. I was so happy, and so safe.
And today I came home to a different house and a different closet and I sat down on the floor and cried. I looked up at all my work dresses and boxes of shoes and piles of jeans and I wondered why I have so much stuff. There were satin sashes hanging down just in line with my vision and I thought, I have so many beautiful things. But they are just things and they do very little to change the sadness in my heart, and they do nothing to take away the lonely ache.
It's kind of unfair that I feel this way. (Not unfair to me, unfair to the people who grace my days.) I have so many beautiful friends and their hearts are like a blooming rose garden, fragrant and lush and bursting with innocent beauty. Their acceptance of me, love for me and encouragement are priceless. And I have men friends who are like brothers to me, who are quick to protect and defend me, even when I do very stupid things. And they still call me by my childish nickname, just like when we were four, and I feel valuable.
And yet...
I wonder if I am lonely for the person I long to be, the person I feel myself becoming, for the life of adventure and risk and deep with meaning. I wonder if I am lonely for the man who will have that life with me, who will let me wrap my arms around his waist while he drives his motorcycle through the brush of whatever country we happen to be discovering. I am lonely for him, and I don't even know him.
Kendall Payne wrote: I've got a new way of living now, a little less of a lot, a little more of nothing... I was wrong when I said I am strong, I am weak and I need all that you have to give...I am meeting myself...
Oh how deeply I feel these words. I read once that her albums will become the soundtrack of your life, and I'm not gonna lie, it's true.
I am meeting myself.
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