Identity

The problem for me with having a blog is I can't decide the focus. This is because, in general, I can't decide who I am.

That is, there's tons of people out there who write parent blogs - CrankMama, for instance, or Stlworkingmom (I always think it means "Still Working" or "Steelers Working" instead of "St. Louis"). Rereading my old posts that have to do with being a mother, I considered framing this blog that way. It would make blog-life easier. I could be on parent-blog networks and maybe get a book deal or something (ha).

But as soon as I start giving weight to that choice, other ones sprout their weedy little heads. I could focus on my spirituality, UUism, the Soul Diet book I've been trying to write forever. I could return to using the insincere but comic 'dumb girl' lens through which to critique society (problem: certain relatives don't get the humor). Every post could be a poem only. I could make cartoons like the one I did for the jozy blog. I could make lists (I love making a list!). I could revamp my redinked.com persona and review the media/books.

All these ideas bring indecisiveness and conflict; as per usual with me, creativity is the first horse of my inner apocalypse of immobility and depression.

And this is just about a blog - a tiny reflection of the larger tension in my life, which is, has been since I was fifteen, what am I going to do with my life?

Over the past several years, I have considered the following:
- poet
- professor
- gifted-children teacher
- graphic designer
- hippie
- lawyer
- MBA - haver
- web designer for nonprofits
- novel-writer
- child advocate
- editor
- priest/minister
- theater teacher
- creative writing teacher
- daycare owner
- psychologist/therapist
- motivational speaker/self-help author
- education phd/ theorist

All of these have their complexities and problems (time commitment, money, lack of skill, not wanting to move, lack of education, etc.) but the biggest problem with ALL of them is that
I don't want to do one of them so much that I'm willing to commit to it and tackle the attending difficulties.

I have, all my life, been fairly quick at picking things up, fairly talented in a general sort of way - a blessing in that I've dipped my toe in a number of pools of experience, but a curse in that I am not so very talented at one thing that it's a no-brainer that I should do it. My life is a series of half-done enterprises:
- took Chinese but can't speak it
- lead singer in a rock band, have a cd, but only lasted a year
- tons of theater training, but nothing to show for it
- web/graphic design, but not enough coding/art education to really do it/be great at it
- got my poetry MFA, but never published so I could be a professor
- half a dozen half-started, incomplete writing projects
etc. etc.

Oh where oh where is the burning bush to tell me what to do!?

I'd even go for a still small voice.

A toasted leaf.

Anything.

When I was about 10 years old, I had a "vision" while entranced with the sunlight glittering through the blinds in my bedroom window - I believed that god was telling me that if I just kept doing everything I was doing (dancing, singing, acting, writing, etc.) that eventually I would get my call. I was intensely happy and assured.

Of course, I lost faith in that particular deity later, and the whole idea of having a calling or a mission or a purpose or a point in life evaporated, leaving me with lots of choices but no direction.

And I'm still there, in many ways.

Lots of choices and possibilities...

I've done all the books on finding a job to love, I've gone to career counselors. But I need more. I'm open and welcoming to any ideas or insights you might have!


About the direction of the blog, too.