Being & Bleeding
- 08
- 12
- 10
Vocations which we wanted to pursue, and didn’t,
bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence.
Honore De Balzac
Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like if I was still practicing law. If I was still clicking away in marble corridors between conference rooms. If I was still wearing pinstripes and pearls. Would I be happy? Would I have found my place, my way, my voice? Would I be respected, revered, even feared? Would my heart and head and home be different places than they are today?
What if I had never made the leap? What if I had never listened to that voice, soft at the time, that said: You want to write? What if I had stayed there, in that tall building, at my desk piled high with documents that numbed me? What then? Would my swelling need to tell stories have faded away? Would I have forgotten my slow-forming dream to write books? Would I have shelved my deepest urge to weave words into tapestries unique and universal?
I don’t know. But I don’t think so.
I imagine that my desire to do something different, to be something different, would have seeped, a glorious gray or deep bloody red, over the black and white life I tried to convince myself of. I imagine that words and sentences and stories would have crept their way into my mind, burrowing in beautifully, until I paid them some attention.
I don’t know.
Where do dreams and desires go when we deny them? Where do the parts of us we can’t pursue end up? What happens to the whole of existence, the fabric of our being, when there is so much bleeding?
___________________
- Have there been vocations you wanted to pursue and didn’t?
- Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you’d taken a different path?
- Do you think that dreams and desires disregarded (because of fear, prudence, etc) come back to haunt us?
- Do you think identity is one part the being of who we are and one part the bleeding of colors of who we could have been?
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Langston Hughes
This is exactly the poem I was thinking of when I read Aidan’s post today. I think every now and then about how life might have ended up if I had started out in a creative field, but I am slowly learning to make peace with the fact that we are always where we are meant to be. I have picked up many amazing skills and a lot of confidence that I wouldn’t have if I had started out in a creative field versus working more traditional jobs. As a result, I am emotionally and spiritually ready to pursue my path as a writer. Whatever windy roads and detours lead you to your dream are just fine – in the end, you will still get there.
Cindy – I do think many of us, most of us in fact, approach our dreams in non-linear ways. Life’s paths are so often winding and full of unexpected detours. I guess my question is whether we will all get there no matter what? Or, after a certain amount of time, we lose our way?
Kim – I love that poem. Thank you for reminding me of it.
I don’t usually comment (I’m practically a professional lurker) but this post really spoke to me today.
The truth for me is that I HAVE tried other things. I have fought my entire life against being a writer because it seems so impractical. And potentially harmful, to my feelings and to my financial health. And out of my control. So instead I worked in art galleries and hospital gift shops. I made smoothies for muscleheads at the gym and sold surfboards to tourists who would never ever ever use them again after their vacations had ended. I taught yoga and I arranged wedding flowers and everything – every career and business venture – always fell through. And I would find myself writing again.
It’s the one thing that has always been there for me. So, for now, I’ve given up fighting it. But I doubt I’ll ever give up the wondering.
Jenni – I am so thrilled that I wrote something that brought you to comment. It is so interesting that we often fight the things we know most deeply, isn’t it? I think that, apart from practicality, a lot of this is about fear. If we do the thing we love and fail, what then?
What a fascinating question—which is one reason I love your writing and also why I am glad you took the leap to explore your dream
I am constantly amazed that for most of the people I work with (myself included) they just know what they want to do–maybe it has gotten buried deep down, maybe it is soaked in fears and doubt, but it is there always there. I think the dream does pop up in various ways in our lives, the key is paying attention to it. For those that were told, no, stupid idea, you can’t do that, their awareness fades a little bit, and they lose the fight to dream. I believe dreams don’t die they are just denied.
You raise an important aspect of this question here. This is not always just about us. There are people in our lives who applaud us, or criticize us, along the way. These people affect our willingness to pursue goals we hold dear.
I have far too much wanderlust in me. I am forever curious about the road not traveled. I sometimes think that it is the reason that I blog, the chance to entertain these thoughts.
Some dreams never die. They never stop. They never go away. The question is whether you are able to ignore the whispers.
I love the idea that we blog to explore thoughts that don’t have a place in our lives otherwise. I also think you are right. Our dreams and desires don’t expire. They are always there, evident in faint whispers we hear or train ourselves not to hear.
Forgive me for sounding like a pretentious old man, but they come back. You can ignore them, but sooner or later they come back.
Oh such a complicated question. Another one is: what if you make the leap and fail? Is the dashed dream worse than the one never ventured?
You ask a very good question. I don’t know, but I imagine that there is a tremendous power in satisfaction in the mere act of pursuit, of trying. I think failure after genuine effort is probably better than never leaping at all? Again, I don’t know…
When I was at school, they asked me what I wanted to be. I said a novelist, and was told that wasn’t a career choice I could make. They told me (however erroneously) that the only writing profession was to become a journalist – and that didn’t suit me. I’ve done other things meanwhile (I’m even studying for my PhD) but at my heart, I still want the same thing. Only now, a decade or more later, I’m brave enough to just go for it.
I am so glad you are now going for what you want. And I hate to hear that someone told you that being a novelist was not a viable career choice. It is so disconcerting that so many of us probably avoided paths that were right for us because of what others said. Good for you for coming back to your dream!
Had you not taken that leap of faith, you might be where I am now. 49 years old – stuck in the legal profession because the mortgage, kids college expenses, and life in general, require that I not give up the regular paycheck and health insurance. I managed to get out of law firm practice six years ago and am now general counsel in a small company – which means no billable hours and no rain-making pressure – and a vast improvement in work/home life balance. And more time to pursue creative avenues as hobby and pleasure activities. I still believe there is a novel in me somewhere – and eventually those voices in my head will become so loud that I can no longer ignore them for the sake of the next tuition payment. But I’m not there yet. I’m still firmly entrenched in practicality.
To have taken a different path anywhere along the way, would I have ended up here? Here is where I am mostly content and for any area I’m not, I’m forming new dreams.
I may not have taken the best path every time (something perfect hindsight can be quite critical of) but I ended up in a perfect place. I figure being allowed to correct past mistakes would only lead to different mistakes.
I wouldn’t want to give up my kids or my husband, for example, if that’s what would happen by altering a single piece of my past.
I think about these questions from time to time. “If I would have done this, where would I be now?” type of questions. But then I quickly glance around and see what I would have missed out on. The urge to write would still have come but I might have ignored it longer.
There is an abundance of abilities and ideas within us; what we become is the direct result of what we choose to tap into. To pull up from our well of resources.
Reflecting on the what-if’s are good once in a while in order to appreciate what you have now, but done too much, it can sabatoge one’s sense of happiness. That nagging feeling of missing out on something will tear away at the blocks of a person’s foundation. Making the doubter unstable, insecure, and always teetering on self-destruction.
I am glad you chose to dip into your well of writing because I have enjoyed reading your blog. Thank you for the thought-provoking posts-love them! It gets my “mommy-brain” working!