Ok, So No to the Olympics

So okay, I guess upon further consideration I do not want to be an Olympic athlete.  My loving friends and family have reminded me that I really don't want to sacrifice my entire life for any one thing like those kind of athletes have to, and as Victoria pointed out, I don't really want to have peaked in my career already.  I mean, think of all of the parts of one's childhood you have to miss to be an Olympic athlete?!  I heard this story about an Australian skiier who lives and trains in Utah.  She is getting married this year but her parents couldn't afford to go to both the Olympics and her wedding because the airfare was too much, so they were missing seeing her in the Olympics.  How heartbreaking is that?! "Honey we love you but you have to choose one or the other?  Do you want us to be there for the biggest moment in your personal life or the biggest moment in your professional life?"  That would suck.  Turns out her Brother, who is her trainer, smuggled her parents into the Olympics as a suprise, so they got to go to both events, but still.  I don't want to have to give up things like having my parents at my wedding or having my parents at the Olympics.

But I do still contend that having the sort of clarity about your life's direction that those sort of lifetime athletes have would be nice.  I mean, imagine, if you woke up and could do exactly what you wanted and were good at it.  If you knew in your core what you were good at, what you should be doing with your life, and you could just go and pursue that without any fear or doubt or anxiety about whether or not you were "doing the right thing."  Wouldn't that sort of certainty be freeing? My Brother and I got into a long discussion about the book "The Giver" when I made a comment that it sure would be nice if there was one wise old sage you could go to who could divine what your highest and best use was, because then you wouldn't have to flounder in the sea of uncertainty.  This lead to a long discussion about whether or not there is anybody who really wants to clean toilets - maybe that's what they are best at, but would they like to do it?  Sigh.  I told him "The Giver" might tell him he is best at arguing . . . but he may be right. 

Maybe this is terribly anti-feminine of me but I think I'd like that kind of rescuing.  I mean, wouldn't it be nice to have someone come in and fix things with their magic fairy wand (or whatever) for you?  A knight in shinning armor or something of that sort?  A wonderful Disney-esque character who would swoop into my life, brush me off, straighten me up, maybe fix up my wardrobe in a "What Not to Wear" fashion, and plop me down into the right career?  Funny thing is, I don't really worry too much about the house, kids, cars, pets, etc. etc.  I can be all independent woman and manage that part of my life.  I don't need the fairy God-person to help me with that.  Just the job.  Just the confirmation of my direction and purpose in life.  That's where I feel like my life is out of whack and I am not sure I know how to get where I want to be without the aide of fairy dust.  I know I have so many talents and skills and I feel like I am squandering them a bit at the moment.  But I don't totally know what/where said fairy God-person would drop me off . . .

So I am not being very helpful - like a petulent child I can tell you a bunch of things I don't like but not what I do like.  Helpful.  Anyway, rest assured, on the list of what I don't want to be when I grow up, you can add Olympic athlete.  Also janitor.  Pretty sure that's not for me either . . . .

Anyone know any fairy God-people?

Namaste,
~Clare

Olympic Potential

Do you remember when the Winter and Summer Olympics were held in the same season?  It feels like that was so long ago . . . My family was always really into watching the Olympics together - with Dominoes pizza and glasses of milk in the basement of our houses.  Goodness I feel old!

My Dad tells this story about how one year, while watching the Olympics with the family, I jumped up on the couch and asked my Dad, "Daddy, what is my talent?"  He claims that I was watching the Summer gymnastics but I remember it being watching Kristi Yamaguchi. Regardless, I would watch the Olympics as a child and long to be as good at something as any of the athletes were at their respective sports.  I wanted to be good at one identifiable thing.  It almost didn't matter to me what that thing was, I just wanted to be clear on what my talent was, and I suppose as any kid, being an athlete seemed like the obvious answer.  I tried my hand as a kid at both gymnastics and ice skating, but I am not really a hard core athlete, so that didn't really work out. I tried field hockey and softball and volleyball in junior high, but still no luck.  I struggled because I wanted so badly to be good at something - anything!  I just wanted to be able to complete the phrase "I am a _____" and I could never figure out what that blank was, or could be, in my life.


I don't think that yearning to be clear on what I was good at has ever ended in my life.  To this day, the most stinging insult I have ever been dealt came my Sophomore year of college when my roomate Ali told me I was "a jack of all trades."  I was trying to decide what my major was, and lacking a clear focus, Ali called it like she saw it.  She was right and I think that's why the comment hurt so much.  I didn't even really know what I wanted to study in school.   Lacking a clear direction or passion I wanted to be a bit of everything -- what I have ended up was a little bit of everything and not a lot of any one thing.  Although, I have to say, I'm really fun at cocktail parties because I know a little bit about a lot of things and can pretty much talk to anyone about something. 

So I am not a great athlete.  I was a good student but not a great student.  I am a good employee but not a driven employee. I am a sort of perpetually coming in just under greatness -- maybe greatness is too big of a word -- its more like mediocrity.  I feel like I am not making a major contribution in any one field or genre.  I am just sort of schlepping through the middle.  I have lots of guilt about this.  I think it has always made me feel sort of purposeless, superfluous even.  Like what exactly is the point of my existence?  Does the world really need more mediocre?

So that's what I am thinking about tonight as I watch the Olympics tonight.  As I watch these amazing athletes make their respective sports look so easy its almost hard to believe that not everyone can do it!! As always, these athletes remind me of what I cannot do -- and -- I suppose -- of what I can . . .

Namaste,
~Clare

February - Ostrich Time

I guess first I should apologize to my readers for going a bit MIA.  My goal had been to blog two-three times a week but we can see already in month one I have failed that.  Oopsie.  Sorry.  February has been a weird month.  Work was turned a bit on its head with the whole office move and then there was no work for me, so I had to shift and doing work for our Dallas office, and then we had (for those of you who have been living under a rock and have missed it) two weeks of snow storms/blizzards/being generally smacked around by Old Man Winter in the form of - pick your favorite - Snowpocalpyse, Snowmagadden, SnOMG, Snoverkill, or Snotorious b.I.g.  Its been nuts.


All this snow, and the accompanying "snow days" (who doesn't love getting paid to not go to work and to stay home?) has given me some time to reflect. Or not reflect.  Or reflect and then get freaked out by all the reflecting I was doing and hide in the depths of the sanctuary that is HGTV "House Hunters".  Guess which one I picked?  There is just so much swirling on inside my head I can't take it.  I know, I know, its been like this for months now.  I blogged about this same stuff months ago, back when I was doing the 40 Days.  But seriously . . . Do I want a new job? Do I want to move? Would that move be to Minnesota? Can I commit to staying in the DC Area for the next few years?  Do I want to have a kid(s)?  Do we want a dog? Do I want to buy a house?  Am I ready to buy a house?  What am I doing with my life . . . . ahhh.  There is just too much!

So I have been nibbling away at some of these thoughts, gritting my teeth and doing the best I can, but really I have been hiding from it all.  I just can't take it.  There is so much in play and the economy being in the dumper makes me feel trapped.  Like I couldn't change jobs if I wanted too.  And as the biological clock ticks away I feel like I am running out of time to have kids - even though I am not sure I want them.  Ugh.  So basically I feel like I am cornered and racing an imaginary clock and its not even like I have a clear plan of what I want to do.  So its a bit stupid I realize to feel cornered and trapped when you don't have a plan, but that's how I feel.


I know i just need to figure out what my priorities are right now.  But how do you do that?  What do I really want?  How do I figure that out without getting all overwhelmed by each and every step that any of these possible life-altering decisions would entail?  So I've basically decided to become an ostrich - stick my head in the ground and wait until all the bad stuff goes away.  Which is not really a helpful strategy for life I don't think.  But I really don't know how ones goes about finding out what your true priorities are.  I think that's my mission but I'd really appreciate being debriefed on how I am to accomplish it. 


I think half of the reason for my overwhelmedness (yes, I know that's not a word) is that I feel a bit like I have ostrichized (yes, I know, that isn't either) the past few years of my life.  I am not trying to be all Debbie Downer and have tons of regrets.  But lets be real.  I am almost 5 years out of college - a college I worked my tail off to get into.  I worked reasonably hard to do well there.  I didn't have too much of a party life, in fact I started to wear it as a badge of honor that my school didn't really embrace the "college" lifestyle, and I was a giant dork and studied.  I graduated in the middle of the pack of my graduating class but it was a Tier 1 school, so surely people would want me, right?  Well, maybe I screwed up in the applying for jobs process, but the long and the short of it is that I never really dangled myself out there for someone to want me.  I ended up as a paralegal in the real estate department of a law firm by chance.  I don't mean to be unthankful for that job and that opportunity, because it was a job with a great group of people, but it wasn't exactly what I had planned.  But somehow I never got back to the job hunt and I never got back on the course that I guess I had imagined I would be on (Sidenote:  I am note sure that I knew then, and clearly I don't know now, what the course would've been for me.  So I am missing something but I don't know what it is.)  And here I am, five years later, not much farther along in understanding where I am going or what "the plan" is for me and my new life.


So I am here, overwhelmed, confused, and feeling a bit sad that I have "wasted" some of the last five years of my life.  I am not sure how to turn what I have been doing into a positive and into a direction that I am happy with.  So I hide.  I hide in the blissful denial of reality and home-improvement television.  I am not sure what to do next. 


That's the honest truth of what I have been not posting the last 3 weeks . . . so there - it's all hanging out. 

Namaste,
~Clare