3:35 p.m. - 2005-07-18
Passion.
Now that I've gotten the silly, girly, boy crazy parts of the weekend out of my system, I have to write about the other aspects.
I used the Open House opportunity to speak to a variety of massage therapists and teachers about taking the certification courses. It is a profession that I would love to go into. I feel so connected to the art the philosophy, and its benefits.
What I learned, however, is that as wonderful as it is, it is very hard on the practitioner's body. A gifted practitioner, with a schedule full enough to live on, works 10 hours a day, using the same muscles and joints over and over again.
With my wrist and spine issues, I wouldn't last half a day.
What a shame.
I used to love doling out massages and learned from top notch practitioners who worked for a rowing team. My friends loved it even more ; ) I even made a couple bucks in college people in my dorm who were suffering from exam stress. I've only ever worked on the back and hands. Legs and arms are kind of tricky. And feet -- eewww. I'd have to know the feet in question as well as I do my full-on fuckafriends (which is at the level of a CIA clearance) in order to touch them. Which, as a practitioner, I would have to get over by wearing gloves or something.
So, the knowledge that this is not going to be my career when I grow us is disappointing. I really was passionate about it. Lots of folks here are writers, and live for art. Me? I enjoy the creativity, the release, the interaction and the friends that I never would have thought I'd have made online (I was a snob about meeting people "online").
So, I'm left with only boys to obsess about, and that gets old after a while too. I read some of my back entries, and say to myself, "jeez that girl is just an attention whore."
It seems that life happens while I'm working, sleeping, going out on the weekends to play with my dearest friends. And its all good, and fun, and pays the bills, but its also half empty and unbalanced. I need to be something else too. I need to be more than a career woman, a friend, a dysfunctional family member, a moderately cute/fun/flirty smartass with cartoon boobs and, well, nothing else.
I have been doing some hellaciously hard work on myself lately, while maintaining all of the above. And maybe its just that I need to finish what I started and the rest will come.
I'll meditate on it and something will come. Something fulfilling that I can delve into with a fiery, yet gentle passion. There are so many things that I could be angry and work myself into a frenzy about that would drive me on for years. But I'm sick of being angry. I'm sick of wallowing in past transgressions. I'm sick of putting my life on hold until I pay off debt and become a real grown-up. This is me time. To hell with retiring in order to live out my golden years. They are right here, right now.
Realistically, I know that this job and I are married for a couple years yet. I have some strenuous work to do around debt pay off and budgeting, but instead of looking at it as a negative, I will admit that I made mistakes and I am perfectly capable to cleaning them up. When I'm finished, I can't imagine how good it will feel. It will be a major accomplishment. Bigger than anything else I've done.
OK. Head thoroughly pulled out of ass. Life is not one huge black hole. Even in my present circumstances, I am blessed, capable, happy, loved.
The passion will come.
