Somehow, I got off the hamster wheel. I am not exactly sure how, or when. But when I look at myself here, I feel just like Dorothy.
“Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”
It wasn’t actually Kansas to begin with. It was California. The “City of Angels” to be exact. I was born and raised in LA la land. Not only the supposed land of the free and the home of the brave but the place where all the pretty people live. It’s important to be pretty there. Shiny and productive. It’s important to know people. Oh, and it’s also helpful to have lots and lots of money.
I was born there and I had a plan. When I was 7 I wanted to be a movie star. The shiny stuff made sense to me at the time with mud pies in the garden and tea parties in my tree house coming in a close second. My parents seemed to think I had a flair for drama and I liked the idea of being someone else. When I was 13, I wanted to be a lawyer. Again, the possibility to be someone else seemed exciting. I would need to play the role of a confident prosecutor, able to intellectually handle all sides of any issue and artfully argue my way out of any situation.
Over the coming years I changed my mind about careers drastically and often. But there were a few things that stayed in place. I would go to high school, after graduating college would start my career, then I would marry that perfect man -the one I met during that silly college event where we promptly fell madly in love. I would work a little while and then we would decide to have children. This exact idea, planted firmly in the back of my mind, was a subconscious guiding force. I didn’t know about it, wasn’t worried about it, but felt sure that it would all work out. Just. Like. That.
And then somewhere along the way, I got off the hamster wheel.
When life takes unexpected turns we all get choices. Laid end to end, those are what shape us. How we interpret things, our perspective, the way we choose to experience our lives defines us. And the stories we tell ourselves and others about our tragedies and adventures are what create the world that we inhabit. Brick by brick. Mile by mile. One minefield at a time.
This blog is about that.