The Journey

What is my journey?

Jesse's last two talks were the first half of a series discussing the Hero's Journey. The basic idea is that every story, including the stories of our own lives, follows a certain plot and all stories share certain fundamental elements. The first week, we discussed the call, when the hero is called upon to do something. "Something" could be completing a task, going somewhere, achieving something physical or intangible, or any number of things.

I think I would be all right if I could identify the damn call in the first place. What am I supposed to do? What is my purpose? My boyfriend has pointed out (several times) that he doesn't feel that I am passionate about nursing. For those of you who don't know, I am taking prerequisite courses to get into nursing school. The truth is, I am not passionate about it. I like the thought of doing something more meaningful and significant than pushing paper, contributing to making someone else's vision a reality, but I don't feel the hunger for a medical career the way some of my classmates do.

The cold hard truth is that I'm not sure I am passionate about anything but my daughter, and I can hardly make a career out of that. I mean, I could if I was a stay-at-home-mom-slash-housewife, but that is rather difficult to pull off when you're not a wife to begin with.

And so I'm back at square one, sitting here alone with a beer, a few loose-leaf sheets of paper, a cigarette in one hand and a glittery gel pen in the other, pouring my heart out to be typed up in my blog later, not that anyone will ever stumble across it anyway, and not a single clue as to where to go with my life from here.

Today, Jesse said that when a person in our society feels that they are missing something in their lives, they tend to go shopping. Sometimes they do that literally, trying to fill that empty space with tangible, material things, while at other times they "shop" for new hobbies, religions or friends. I immediately recognized the pattern he described, because it is what I have done my entire life. With me, it's always a new art project, writing project, a new hobby, a new lifestyle, a new place. I don't actually finish any of it, of course. It's just a nice little distraction until I become engrossed in something else. In the end, I am nowhere closer to being sated. What will fill that hole? Is that hole even really there, or am I just imagining that there is something missing?

I saw the movie Julie & Julia today, and it really touched me. Both cdharacters were lost in their own way, and they found salvation through cooking and writing. With just these two things, they were validated, satisfied, and even admired. Is that how it is supposed to play out off the big screen? You try enough things and you stumble across some hobby or job that makes your life perfect and complete? Or is the popularity of the book and the movie a testament to the fact that everyone feels lost like theis their entire lives, and that nothing has ever been able to fix it?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, "If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it; every arrow that flies feels the attraction of Earth." Sometimes it feels as if every arrow I let fly hits the ground, but I don't know how to aim higher, especially when I can't even see the target I'm supposed to be shooting at.