It’s going to sound nuts, but I woke up yesterday with a really strong feeling that something bad was going to happen. I made sure I drove carefully, I kept my eyes and ears open at work (in case of layoffs), and I tiptoed just about everywhere I went. Didn’t even walk under the ladders that are propped up on the walls at work. Then I came home and heard the news about Michael Jackson, and to be honest, I didn’t really like his music much (and I thought he was seriously weird, but I felt sorry for him for the crap that his fame put him through from an early age). After a while it hit me that maybe the bad news I was expecting was that with an icon from my childhood dying, it means my childhood is pretty well over. Well, duh, I’m 42, but talk about a midlife crisis. Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died on the same day. Two major celebrities as I was growing up. Don’t tell me if Bruce Springsteen has high blood pressure and arthritis. I don’t want to know. They’re not supposed to get old because if they do, then I did too, and I’m not ready to be old.
I’m especially not ready to be old when I haven’t done what I set out to do in life. I had a blowup last night with 3 very good friends because it finally started seeping out of where I buried it in the far, dark recesses of my heart that I’m jealous that they’ve reached a level of success that, at the current moment, feels pretty unattainable for me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not good enough or the timing just hasn’t been right, but I’m not there yet and they are. I’m so fricking tired of being cheerleader to everybody else, and it feels like I’m never going to make that team myself, no matter what I do. I’m just picking up jock straps and smelly towels, and handing out water and yelling “Yay team!” But who cheers for the water kid?
I gave a lot of thought to giving up. Maybe it’s time to just face the fact that I’m not good enough at writing to ever get anywhere with it. Maybe I’ve finally hit rock bottom. (And the odd thing is that a friend of mine had emailed a few months ago, saying she was pretty sure she was going to hang up her keyboard and just write for the fun of it because success was too elusive to even think about anymore…and a few days later, she got the call that she’d finaled in the Golden Heart. I was really hoping that if she could hit rock bottom and then get there, maybe it would work for me too. As you can see, I’m not holding my breath.)
I even went so far as to open a junk mail that asked, “What’s your true purpose in life?” I’m not sure I know what it is. Knitting? It’s fun, but will it save the world? I don’t know. Maybe it’ll save one person from cold feet on a winter night. My kids? One’s a little too much like his father to be the next Albert Schweizer, and the other has autism. Playing writer’s cheerleader? <SIGH>
I feel like Tinkerbell at the end “Peter Pan”. Does anyone out there believe in fairies?