opportunities lost?
i don't know if this is a turning 30 thing or a deep in debt thing, but alternative life directions have become the focus of nearly all of my free fleeting thought time. strangely, i don't fantasize about a differe
nt job RIGHT NOW or a different life partner EVER or even a different geographical location FOR NOW, i just keep finding myself dreaming of paths i could have taken and directions i abandoned and wondering how much better all of this could be if i had persevered. i am not a perseverent kind of person. funny, too, because i think many of my close aquainatances at different times in my life would have thought so. but i am not. i am a quitter and a phobe. i know that isn't a word all by itself, but it applies to so many parts of my existence that i think i deserve to just use it as a descriptive noun to refer to myself. i am not sure why i become so afraid, but i do and there is no looking back. and then there is just the quiet torture of shame and denial. how did this happen to me?
this post is really supposed to be about all of the talents i fantasize about having, so let's move on to that. i can't stop myself from believing that i have a deeply-rooted talent for things like... sculpture. with the exception of a poorly proportioned but symmetrical penguin that i made out of clay in 7th grade, i have never sculpted anything. but i apparently have to believe that i could if i tried. i think i just have a deeply-rooted NEED for talent. or the illusion of such. for a few weeks in 2004 i had convinced myself that if i tried really hard i could be a pastel artist. i met a wonderful woman who is a pastel artist and she offered to show me her technique. so i chose to believe that i could do it too. i never tried. and
she hasn't yet shown me (because of my tendency toward avoidance) but i thought for a while that i was supposed to have been an artist. when i 
was a young child i was given much positive feedback on my school writings. so occasionally i have believed that if i only had enough information on a given topic and a commitment to something specific, i could have been a writer had i continued to hone those skills. my recent new-found obsession with my gym membership and "numbers" has brought me to lament about missed opportunities in body-building/fitness competition. if only i had started younger and continued then... if only i had discovered before that i had a predisposition for this... the reality, humorous and a little sad, is that i have none of these talents and i never did. and likely never will. (note*"likely" i still have to hold on to something!) but i dream of them. i even gave up on my academic life and that was the one thing i actually was good at! ther
e are some things that i know i could do well that are more realistic. i would be a good adolescent counselor. i would be a good professor. in a parallel universe, i would even be a good mechanic. or pediatrician. but having made all of the choices hinted at in the first paragraph, none of these things are an option anymore. how did this happen? does it drive jan crazy? it must. she must be a very good person for staying with me despite my inability to do anything real. should i worry about this? i'll choose not to until she gives me reason to decide otherwise. there must be some kind of resolution, but apparently the ability to find that resolution is not among my many "talents".
nt job RIGHT NOW or a different life partner EVER or even a different geographical location FOR NOW, i just keep finding myself dreaming of paths i could have taken and directions i abandoned and wondering how much better all of this could be if i had persevered. i am not a perseverent kind of person. funny, too, because i think many of my close aquainatances at different times in my life would have thought so. but i am not. i am a quitter and a phobe. i know that isn't a word all by itself, but it applies to so many parts of my existence that i think i deserve to just use it as a descriptive noun to refer to myself. i am not sure why i become so afraid, but i do and there is no looking back. and then there is just the quiet torture of shame and denial. how did this happen to me?
this post is really supposed to be about all of the talents i fantasize about having, so let's move on to that. i can't stop myself from believing that i have a deeply-rooted talent for things like... sculpture. with the exception of a poorly proportioned but symmetrical penguin that i made out of clay in 7th grade, i have never sculpted anything. but i apparently have to believe that i could if i tried. i think i just have a deeply-rooted NEED for talent. or the illusion of such. for a few weeks in 2004 i had convinced myself that if i tried really hard i could be a pastel artist. i met a wonderful woman who is a pastel artist and she offered to show me her technique. so i chose to believe that i could do it too. i never tried. and
she hasn't yet shown me (because of my tendency toward avoidance) but i thought for a while that i was supposed to have been an artist. when i 
was a young child i was given much positive feedback on my school writings. so occasionally i have believed that if i only had enough information on a given topic and a commitment to something specific, i could have been a writer had i continued to hone those skills. my recent new-found obsession with my gym membership and "numbers" has brought me to lament about missed opportunities in body-building/fitness competition. if only i had started younger and continued then... if only i had discovered before that i had a predisposition for this... the reality, humorous and a little sad, is that i have none of these talents and i never did. and likely never will. (note*"likely" i still have to hold on to something!) but i dream of them. i even gave up on my academic life and that was the one thing i actually was good at! ther
e are some things that i know i could do well that are more realistic. i would be a good adolescent counselor. i would be a good professor. in a parallel universe, i would even be a good mechanic. or pediatrician. but having made all of the choices hinted at in the first paragraph, none of these things are an option anymore. how did this happen? does it drive jan crazy? it must. she must be a very good person for staying with me despite my inability to do anything real. should i worry about this? i'll choose not to until she gives me reason to decide otherwise. there must be some kind of resolution, but apparently the ability to find that resolution is not among my many "talents".
posted by shelly at 1/12/2006 11:58:00 AM
1 Comments:
I can dig on this one. I had/have dreams of being an artist. I almost went through with it in 1998. I dropped all of my classes and registered for four studio art classes at the beloved UND...jewelry making, ceramics (and not the kind our moms used to do when we were young), and drawing.
All these classes, and it turns out, I had some mediocre talent at the ceramic one. I continued with that while becoming a teacher...not an artist...and then, let it go to become an adult who could make some money...not an artist.
All that being said, I crave that potter's wheel. I took an adult ed class one summer and I loved it. I loved it. I think you should do that. I think you might find the classes affirming that you have a talent.
Wow...that was very self-absorbed of me...i think I will continue this discussino on my blog..thanks for the idea.
And, yes, you are a good writer. So good in fact, I am going to steal this topic to write about it.
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