Just a Bunch of Stuff that Happened

It may be true that life is pretty much, to paraphrase Homer Simpson, just a bunch of stuff that happens. Still, I would like my days in this world to at least seem like something more.

After finishing Cormac McCarthy's The Road, the mental equivalent of eating a bushel of raw kale, it once again occurred to me that I might want to do something with myself. Unlike The Man and The Boy, I am not forced to wander around an ashen landscape in search of canned goods and potable water, so a life that is just a bunch of stuff will not do.

My past attempts to do something with myself didn't turn out very well. I know I have poked at those ruins and ashes long enough, but they are so familiar to me that it's hard to leave them behind. If The Boy were to ask me about my "long term goals" I would hesitate to answer. At this moment, anything beyond getting a hamster or sewing a bolster pillow seems about as attainable as becoming the Pope. Home ownership? A life partner? Parenthood? A career? These sound desirable, but very strange to me right now, like faded illustrations from an old children's book. I suppose I am choosing not to make enough money to purchase a home in a place I would actually want to live. I don't remember choosing not to have a husband and children. I could try to chose a career again. So many of these things are tied to the perceptions and desires of other people. The trick is to behave as though my choices are more important than that, and that my choices can bring me to the right people, even if they haven't in the past.