February 14 -- In honor of Valentine's Day, I am writing about a bumper sticker I saw on the back fender of a beat up old van driving in front of me one day last week. I was having a particularly challenging day with all of the house issues and computer issues, never mind all of the kid issues going on as well.
Anyway, the bumper sticker read, "Live the Life you Love." I thought about that for awhile because I was behind the van for quite some time. I wondered about the driver of the van which looked fairly old and well worn. I wondered, was he really happy? Was he choosing to do something he loved even though it clearly didn't pay enough for him (or her, I guess!) to drive a newer van?
I got to thinking about that phrase and after awhile, it started to bug me. What is the life I love, I wondered. I would love to not ever work, to just play every day. I guess. But eventually, I would get bored. I know that about me. I like challenges; I like to do different things and to push myself into the discomfort zone. But I don't love that either. It's a stressful way to be, isn't it? I mean there is always the euphoric fist pumping at the end of a difficult challenge but ohhhhhh, the stress involved along the way. Yipes. It's like raising children. So many ups and downs.
I thought about today's world and how the idea of "living a life I love" is actually quite a luxury. I mean, what about women born in countries where they have no voice, where they are abused and raped and even killed? Just because they are women! Are they living the life they love? Do they even get a choice? For some reason, I thought about the pioneers, setting out for the wild west to pursue a dream (which was usually their husband's). How hard their lives were as they travelled out west and then, when they had settled in the new frontier, to make a home/farm which provided the necessary sustenance for their families to survive, and thrive. Did they have a choice? Could they say, oh, I don't feel like working today. I am going to curl up in my jammies and read an O magazine. Did they love their lives? Probably not.
I am so caught up in trying to find a full time job right now. I am obsessed with wanting to find just the right career which will give me a life I love. Where I can use my God-given talents to help others. (And get paid for it because sending four kids to college is not going to be cheap!) Yes. I certainly do love my life right now in this very moment. But I can sense my restlessness. I need to be intellectually challenged -- I thrive on it! But change is difficult. And so is choosing the steps I must take to affect that change. Sometimes, because I have so many choices, I actually resent it. I feel like a spoiled brat.
I don't know if this makes any sense, but when I think of all the women who have gone before me and have made so many sacrifices so that I can, in fact, stay in my pajamas on a blustery cold Sunday and spend all day reading books and watching movies with my kids, I am both appreciative and, I worry, a bit of a wuss. Like those amazingly brave and selfless women who forged the path before me, am I doing enough, I wonder, to help the women who come after me?
I don't know. I have to think about this some more...
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