The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Good Points

I've come to realize that I'm basically flatlining on a social and professional level. I don't care about much, it would seem, and that bothers me. I am most comfortable here, in my house, writing occasionally but always wondering why I do it because it seems a little misguided to call it 'writing', when it's essentially blogging. I have been reading a Hemingway book about advice to writers, and it's great, truly, but the thing is that I feel a little like someone who enjoys fingerpainting reading the artistic advice of Michelangelo. What exactly is the point?

I love that M. is undaunted when it comes to trying something new. Last night, he came home from his usual coffee/man-hour to tell me that he and his friend C. had devised a business plan to construct and sell boats. Not just any boats, mind you, but a certain kind of boat that is environmentally friendly, promotes fitness and costs less than other boats on the market. M. is just the kind of guy who, when he decides to do something, he does it well, perhaps better than everyone else. It would bother me a lot if I didn't love him.

I get tired from doing nothing, and the fatigue keeps me from doing anything. Funny how that works.

I'm thinking that maybe all my childhood dreams of 'being somebody' one day were just that, dreams. They were coping mechanisms to get me through the slippery parts, the days when I was alone in the house, feeling undesirable and unwanted, and the future hadn't come and left me empty, yet. I remember one particular day, a really yellow summer afternoon, where I was sitting on the end of my parent's bed watching a show called 'Jennifer Slept Here', a really bad sitcom about a dead movie star who had become a ghost in her old home, and thinking that maybe, one day, I'd be glamourous. I imagined myself beautiful, going from club to club, unwilling to limit myself to one man and travelling the world extensively. I didn't know how I would manage it, but I would be the kind of woman who silenced a buzzing room just by entering it. The fact that I remember this so well must mean that I believed it enough to keep it close.

But, I am not that woman. I am a face in a sea of millions, easily forgotten, perhaps before I register. It's no one's fault, either, except my own. I have let all the negative barbs and comments pool around me until I became an island. I chose to hide from life because facing it was too unpleasant to make it worth the effort. I still don't feel like I can face it, either. I am still waiting for the strength to awaken.

M. loves me, as does my wee one. It takes the sting out of my mediocrity.

If I didn't have this...thing, this 'affliction' that makes me quiver and fall apart inside whenever the wind blows a certain way, I'd be a different person. I can't imagine how, but I know I would be. I would have finished university, undoubtedly, and I would have likely travelled a lot. I might have lived in Paris for a while, or in Tuscany. I might have become the journalist I'd set out to be, writing for a living and feeling confident about it. I might be thinner, with a knowledge of wines and a collection of interesting and eccentric friends. My walls would be covered in photographs of the people and places I'd been enchanted by, and my wardrobe would include heels. I would be able to walk in them, too. My desk would be in front of an open window which would look out on to a lake or perhaps the ocean. I would fall asleep at night, feeling satisfied with who I am, knowing that I am doing the very best that I am capable of doing. I would feel worthy of love and accolades.

Maybe this period of my life, what some might call a 'desert period' has a reason. I know that some people do not appreciate trying to find reason in pain or suffering but I have known many people who have gotten through their own tough periods with a greater understanding of what they were meant to achieve in life. Like last night, I watched an interview online with Colin Farrell, and while I had never been a huge fan of his before, I was a little bit infatuated with him by the time he finished speaking. He seems to get himself quite well, and spoke openly about all the years he was essentially 'lost', citing his addictions as symptoms of a 'spiritual malady'. He was earnest while he spoke, and I believed him, and I found myself understanding the commonality between myself and any other person out there who is trying to make peace with their wounded conscience. We are all damaged in some way, aren't we?

In this life, the one with the panic and the inexplicable sinking feelings, there are good things. I love how I feel when I am reading something marvellous, or how good chocolate brings about an almost sexual high with the first bite. The red and orange leaves of fall, the warm, soft breeze that brings the scent of them to me. The bounce in my daughter's step, the way she runs at me when the school doors open and wraps herself around me like she hadn't seen me six hours before. M's smile, the way he kisses my cheek when he thinks I'm sleeping. The way my sister decided that she liked a name I'd suggested for her unborn baby, when I hadn't expected her to (Eila, pronounced I-la, and she might use it, which is shocking). I love thick soups and green salad. Poetry, music and art. Coffee with M. as we watch PBS. I love movies (watched 'Infamous' today and thought it was the superior Capote film, even though I like Philip Seymour Hoffman), and I enjoy reading celebrity gossip. The colours red and green. The way my wee one looked today, in her cream and gold outfit with the matching headband, her blondish hair shining like gold threads in the sunlight.

I love knowing that a glass of red wine will not only soothe me, but will usually make me relax enough to fall promptly asleep while loving my heart. I love sweet apples and bananas, Hallowe'en and Christmas. I love to watch Cate Blanchett speak and Johnny Depp walk. The days when my hair behaves well, and the days when I look thin. Old photographs, antique furniture, vintage what-have-you. Fresh sheets, the smell of flowers, the taste of Earl Grey tea.

I love the feel of his skin on mine, the feel of his tongue on my neck, his hands searching and finding. I love that I explode every time, that I don't have to make my mind work to do it. The length of him, his long and lean frame, the strength in his arms.

I love my little girl, with her saucy remarks and her wicked little grin. I love her unexpected hugs and sudden showers of kisses. The way she asks me questions about things I didn't know she thought about, or the way she dances like a ballerina, in a pink tutu and rubber shoes. I love the art she creates on the computer, the way she worked so hard picking the seeds out of the 'four o'clock' plants outside, collecting them to be planted next year. She is funny, and smart and beautiful, and I don't say this because I made her. I am fortunate to have been made her mother.

I love knowing that I can take a nap when I am feeling the need to do so. Like now.