Inner Workings discussion

  I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, 
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, 
To put to rout all that was not life and not 
when I had come to die Discover 
that I had not lived.
--Henry David Thoreau

I am good at thinking. Everyone says so. Some people even say I think too much. Today, I tend to agree, because I am just beginning to see that I have thought myself into and out of so many things in my life.

I thought myself out of going to the school I really wanted to go to, out of the degree program I auditioned for and sent a portfolio to, plus two interviews, just to get in. What I wanted, what I really wanted, was to go to Eugene Lang College in New York and get a dual BA/BFA in Jazz Studies and Creative Writing. But my parents’ divorce was being finalized that year, everyone seemed to be worried about money, and the degree sounded so… impractical. So I went to a school that started out far cheaper and ended up being the same damn price in the end.

I ended up compromising on what I wanted to study, even though I made the best of it, made myself into the best writer I could be. I ended up quitting singing after the lessons got expensive and my band never showed up for practice. There is no way of knowing what I would have done with the Jazz Studies degree, but I’d be willing to bet I wouldn’t have given up so easily with more training, practice and performing. I bet I wouldn’t be restricting my singing to the inside of my car, kitchen and shower out of a lack of confidence.

I thought myself out of writing. Even though it was what I loved doing more than anything else, even though I had a great group of writer friends who understood me better than anyone ever had, even though I felt that I had indeed made myself into a writer, I thought myself out of it. I decided I wasn’t good enough. I decided it wasn’t practical. I decided I had romantic notions about life that just had to go. I had two people to support financially. I couldn’t work at Starbucks for the rest of my life, or the movie theater, just to “get by” so that I could write. I burned everything I had ever written in some kind of foolishly cathartic moment. I probably thought myself into believing I was a phoenix cathartically removing romanticism, being reborn into capitalism.

I thought myself into getting married at 23 - I'm still not sure what the thought process was - something to do with being a grownup. I thought myself into having a baby at 27, reasoning that I was married, and that through sheer determination I could make it work. Emotions, or at least hormones, played a role in the decision to have both of my kids, but only to the extent that they informed what I thought my life should be like.

I thought myself out of the career I set aside writing to develop, thinking and locking myself into believing that I could be happier as a stay at home mother.

Somewhere along the way, I must have decided that feeling my way through things was not a good way to do anything.

One must think these things through. One must be practical. One must have a list of reasons and they must be good reasons that can stand up to inquiry. One must view emotions as impediments to good decision making.

Today, right now, I believe – I sense – I feel - that all that thinking was really a way of not just hiding feelings in general, but masking fear. Making excuses for not being brave and facing what I want from my life, what I need from it.

Sucking the marrow out -- you can’t suck marrow if you are trying to think through a plan of attack on the bone while it sits there on the plate waiting for you. You have to just pick it up and suck on the damn thing. Crack it open with your teeth. Do what you need to do to get at it.

My mom says I’ve changed a lot in the last two years. She says I’ve become more myself, she says I am stronger now than I’ve been in a long time. She is right, I have decided, because this time, this time, this time I’m going to stand by how I feel. How I feel runs deeper than what I think, it runs deeper than fear, shame or guilt. I cannot think myself out of it, I cannot dispense with the certainty of the feelings, I cannot shake them off, push them down, or burn them on the grill. I cannot argue about their validity. I cannot dispense with them in favor of practicality.

For the first time, I’m glad of it, and I don’t want to talk any more about what I think.

This is beautiful, Shel. Follow your heart's desire. Do everything you can do and God will take care of everything you can't do.

Well, good! I understand the whole "I decided" crap. You can decide yourself right out of your own happiness. Forgive yourself and move on to who you want to be.

Thanks, you guys. Lots of change coming down the pike for me. I'm glad I have somewhere safe to write about it...

Omigod. I just figured out where I got that trait of thinking my way out of things!

My dad and I just had a three email exchange where he pegged, question for question, all of the things I would normally use to talk myself out of something!

Wow.

OMG you're turning into your father! :D

this was really good shel... i enjoyed every word. go with the feelings. think less. exciting things can happen. most of my life has been decided by just doing without much thinking and most of my life has been not what i ever would have expected. enjoy your new journey.

Yeah, there are lot of things I did not do that I regret not doing and lots that I did. Story of my life.