do I like my life?

Sigh. I had a whole post running through my head today, about living in other people's reality, about how one person's joy is another's nightmare, inspired by Jack, who, while in Vermont, lay face down in the snow sobbing about feeling trapped there. The isolation, the endless trees dusted in snow, backlit against the heavy grey sky, no people or other buildings in sight, pushed him over the edge of misery. While some would revel in the silence, the stillness, the unmarred whiteness, to him it was prison.

But, that was before.

I just had an impromptu coffee with my dearest friend—someone I never get to see enough of. We talked about all the things we usually talk about: school, kids, parents, aging, how there's too much to juggle, how to navigate other people's challenges. How frustrating and exhausting it is not to be able to fix everything. How we need a break when there's not one to be had.

And I found I didn't want to be talking about any of that. These are large parts of my reality that I don't want to be large parts of my reality anymore. Not that I don't appreciate my life, not that I don't adore my kids, not that I want anything to drastically change.

I just want more.

And I want it to be different.

I want to be engaged, challenged, interested.

Or, to look at it from a different perspective: I want to be engaging, challenging, interesting.

I want my brain to stretch, I yearn to be uncomfortable, to have to think more, dig deeper, delve into things I don't know. I'm almost craving that edge-of-anxiety feeling when there's a deadline ahead and I have to kick butt to make it. I'm almost missing the panic of not knowing, the uncertainty of whether I'm accomplishing something or heading in the wrong direction.

I'm ready to climb out of the cocoon of inactivity that I've fallen into the past few months. I bought into the concept that after FLOW I needed to recuperate, to heal, to lay low and recover from the madness, the emotional ups and downs, the sky-high dreams crashing into reality.

I know what I need to do. I've got 3 proposals to put together. I've got info to research, art to find, sentences to craft, ideas to flesh out.

It's time to dive back into the unknown. The discomfort. The putting myself out there knowing full well I could be rejected in the end.

That seems to be my path. I dread it and yet I crave it. The edginess of it all is living to me.