Am I Living It Right?

Blog soundtrack:



It’s been a while since there has been a blog soundtrack, so go forth and listen to the music.

The last few months of my life have been trying. I have not lost a job (been there and done that), I have not lost a loved one (been there and done that too much and in huge ways), and I have not lost my mind (well, been there and done that maybe once a month when stress rhymes with PMS!); however, I did lose a tooth last night. Okay, at 40-something, I way beyond the baby teeth and cavity prone years.

Iz, my 8-year-old daughter, lost another front tooth last night, leaving her with virtually no front teeth and making an even more blinding glare (sometimes she reminds me of Jaws, not the movie, but of the James Bond henchman!) from the palate expander that currently occupies her whole mouth. Currently, Iz has an open dialogue (that is, exchanging letters back and forth) with the Tooth Fairy, which I encouraged. I had to put on my Tooth Fairy wings last night; if truth be told, I so love those wings and the words that I get to say as her.

For example, last night, Iz wrote the Tooth Fairy in regard to her lost tooth and because she also wanted to give the Tooth Fairy all her Polly Pocket paraphernalia in exchange for getting Monty, our dearly departed Corgi back. The Tooth Fairy wrote back that she could not accept Iz’s toys. She told Iz that she could also not bring Monty back.

She did tell Iz that Monty was very happy in Heaven with his girlfriend, Zelda. (I always thought if I ever acquired a female Corgi that her name would be Zelda.) The Tooth Fairy also told her how much Monty missed her, and Iz seemed very happy to know all of this.

Anyway, despite being a part-time Tooth Fairy, I have been trying to navigate the waters of my life in a very small boat for the last several months. Sometimes these waters seem like the Bermuda Triangle. I’m lost, confused, alone, and I wonder if I’ll end up as an episode on Unsolved Mysteries.

There have been many diversions along the way. “Come stay on my island for a while.” But, none of them have seemed quite right. In fact, most of them involve spending life on a deserted island, a place in which I can live but can never be seen or heard from. (Some of you will “get” that. Some of you won’t, but I don’t care, because it’s my blog!)

Recently, I stopped and thought long and hard about being stuck in the Triangle that seems to be my life now. Oddly, when I think about my life right now, I hear two songs. They are the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” and John Mayer’s “Why Georgia.”

I did say once that my life has soundtracks, right? Okay, if I didn’t, I’m saying it now. My life is an endless soundtrack, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

After assessing all my choices, I said, “I should go.” And then when I reassessed all the ways I could divert myself from concentrating on going, I said, “Am I living it right?” I decided that I wasn’t.

Typically, I’m a very impulsive person. I’m the very impulsive person who usually makes the wrong decisions when being impulsive. VHS or Beta? Beta. Microsoft stock or Flowbee stock? Flowbee. Chicken or egg? PedEgg. I am always wrong on impulse!

So, I took a deep breath, and I asked myself the question in "Why Georgia Why?" which is “Am I living it right?” It wasn’t that I started living wrong; it was that I was thinking about living wrong. For the first time in my life, beta, flowbee, and pedegg went out the window.

I decided that the most important thing I owed myself was myself. My children, Nate and Iz, always came first; however, I owed it to myself to make it all about me and where I wanted to go and where I was not about to stay. I was not going to stay on someone’s island, a captive; I would venture unknown waters and discover a new land, my land.

At the end of the day, I really have no one to be proud of me in the traditional sense. My parents are long gone. But, in the moment that I decided that I would live my life right and think about me and me alone, I was so proud of myself.

I hate to say it, but that was a first for me in my lifetime. I think I felt inklings, but what I felt in that moment was defining; old Jeans can be patched! And, life is so very good when you let yourself be who you were meant to be without any deserted islands, pirates who want to steal from you, or planks some might want you to walk. ♥

P.S. And, thanks Brenda for (paraphrasing here) "A blog no matter how small is always appreciated." ♥