Today, the fourth day of being sick in bed is finally, I think, the last one. Its boring. Especially as you start to feel better and want to do things like work on the ideas for your new trapeze routine that you’ve had so much time in bed to think about, but not enough energy to actually rehearse. Frustration!
Of course, I could insert a happy lesson here about being grateful for my body’s ability to heal or that I have a bed to convalesce in and that all I’m healing from is a sore throat. But after four days of feeling guilty, pressured, stressed and worried about what I’m missing, and who I’m letting down, I’d rather write about taking control of my own life.
I could have made the decision to push through being sick, to pop antibiotics on day one instead of seeing if my body could heal itself first and I could have pushed myself to overcome what my body was telling me in order to train in the name of following my dreams on the trapeze and all that. But I chose not to. Consciously. And I’m lucky enough (stubborn enough) to have structured my life so that 90% of the time I can make those decisions. So what’s with the guilt? Who’s pressuring me? While there are definitely some people out there who are manipulating their notions of loyalty, authority or what have you on my life to their own ends, most of the pressure comes from myself. And any pressure that I allow from outside is just that, pressure that I allow.
Four days away from the world gave me a cleaner house bit by bit as I got more energy, let me go through some pictures from the past that have been sitting in a box for months, let me smile and laugh and cry at some of those pictures instead of rushing through them, let me organize a little of my closet, watch tv, write, sit still on my roof on a beautiful night with a great friend who I love so much more dearly than I can say and even harder but better, to sit still with myself and get a little perspective on my life in this crazy city.
So who’s running your life? Yes, we need to pay the bills, care for family and friends, have discipline to reach our goals. Yes choices about how to do that get more and more difficult in this economy everyday. But how we do those things is still a choice. Its our life and we might just only get one. I’m overjoyed to be able to say that I’m following my dreams. Its not always easy and I don’t like every choice that I make to get there. Seeing more of my friends and family would be nice! But I’m still choosing what kind of life I want to live. I’m making each little decision about each sacrifice, risk and opportunity as it comes along. So I might as well try to own that and do it consciously. And while I’d appreciate it if other people wouldn’t pressure me so much, I’d probably appreciate it most if I didn’t pressure myself on behalf of anyone but myself.
So now I’m going to listen to Muse’ new song Uprising. Again. You should too. Watch the video for the weird teddy bear monsters too, it somehow makes me laugh and feel like a bad ass at the same time.
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