Ah, The American Dream

Something strange happened to me this weekend. Well, I'm sure there was more than one strange thing, but this one stood out to me enough to blog about it.

I wanted a family.

Now don't misunderstand, I do have a great family. Parents, siblings, a niece and nephew (and one on the way!) that I adore and that love me. Aunts, uncles, and cousins galore. I guess I could say it this way:

I wanted kids.

This is not normal for me. I love kids. I've just never been the girl who could see herself in the 2 kids-station wagon-suburban house mold. Never been against it, just couldn't see it for myself. But I was out shopping the other day and saw all the families doing their back to school shopping, and something in me just kinda... longed.

Seeing the dads and sons dressed in their matching Duck gear, the dads telling their young daughters that they MAY NOT have those platform sandals - the mom standing by, nodding in agreement - something about it seemed so.. secure. Domestic. Wonderful.

Maybe it's just an off day for me, I don't know. I think what I long for is something stable and long-term. My life has been comprised of a series of changes and upheavals. Something has always been in transition, temporary, or fleeting. So many things that I thought I could count on, or that seemed like they would last forever, didn't.

I'm pretty sure I just want to have something steady. I love the idea of having the security of knowing where I'm gonna be in 5 years. Who I'm gonna be waking up next to. Planning for birthday parties, field trips, college. I guess that's pretty normal. But I've never felt like I was a normal girl.

I was realizing tonight, when thinking about this blog, that I really do feel like I'm not normal. I've always kind of lived in this bubble. When I was young, it was a bubble of religion. You act a certain way, believe certain things, and go to church, and things will turn out. You'll go to heaven eventually. You may or may not live a satisfying life in the meantime.

Then it became a bubble of self-protection. As things in my family deconstructed and I found myself in desperate circumstances, I turned inward to protect myself. I didn't trust anyone. Still have trouble with that, actually. I relied only on myself to take care of me.. because everyone else who was supposed to have taken care of me either had bailed, turned against me, or was busy trying to preserve themselves.

Then came what I call the bubble of anti-religion. I started to become so opposed to the idea of practicing religion, following rules and regulations just for the sake of following them or because it's been done that way for a looooong time, that I kinda went too far to the opposite direction. I started to almost despise anything that had to do with the rules of religion. I relied to much on the fact that God has grace for us when we mess up, and started to stop taking enough care in developing a relationship with Jesus, which is really all that the Bible asks us to do. That, and love others more than we love ourselves.

I've kinda always lived in extremes. All the way to one side or the other, no middle ground. This is also why I feel like I'm not really normal.

I got a taste of balance lately. I felt like a normal girl. And I want that back.

I was listening to a song tonight that had these lyrics:

"I tried to be someone else, but nothing seemed to change. I know now, this is who I really am inside."

And I really couldn't tell if who I really am inside was the girl who lives to extremes and misses out on all the wonderful, normal, stuff in order to shoot for the extraordinary; or the girl who has stability but maybe doesn't exactly burn like a world-changing rocket all of the time.

I think that inside, I'm the second one. I'm tired of forcing myself to live this life of extremes, never feeling like a regular person cause I'm always so busy trying to accomplish the miraculous, which never seems to come about anyway.

I want my taste of normal back.

But I don't think I'm gonna get it. The reality is this: I don't fit in either way. I've tried sacrificing all the things I long for in order to try to change the world, and the world stayed the same. I've tried making a difference in the world on a smaller scale and focusing on seeing my dreams become reality, and the dreams still fell apart.

I'm in a strange limbo, a cryogenic stasis of the soul. Nothing is changing outwardly, but inside - atrophy. Both worlds rejected me. And I don't know if it's cause I'm simply inadequate, or because I'm still living to an unreasonable extreme. I've been told that you can have both, that you can make a difference in the world and still see your dreams comes true. I think I'm just worn out from the battle of trying to make both happen, and in the process, seeing neither happen.

Sometimes I just want a SUV and a picket fence.

But I've learned over the years that I can be content wherever I am. I suppose it's not abnormal to long for certain things, even if I can never really convince myself that I'll have them. I guess that in a way, it's what drives us to achieve more than we are now. It's what keeps us going.

Because I really don't think I'll get my back to school shopping trip or my picket fence. But that tiny hope inside of me that thinks "maybe... just maybe..." keeps me trying for it.

I don't mean to be negative, especially in light of the overwhelming positivity of some of my previous blog posts (not the last one, I know). I believe everything I write. I hope you don't feel like I'm a hypocrite for expounding on such hopeful faith before and writing about such longing and seeking now.

I believe that sometimes even people who have strong faith in things can have doubts and questions. It's how we work through them that matters.

It's ok to question. It's ok to learn. It's ok to doubt, because in working through doubt, we find out what it is that we truly believe in and stand for.

So find what you stand for. Then, stand.