Not Cleaning Up So Well

(This is a drama post. There might be some rhyming and rhetoric and some painful plea for attention. You have been warned.)

Some days I feel like a sell out. Today is a "some day". I wonder why I'm not pursuing a burning life passion. I know I'm not doing so bad. It's just that as I grow older, I feel a lot more pressure to make sense of my life, to make sure I am living a life that matters.

And yes, I know perfectly well that these are big ass motherhood statements that have no definite answers. I know very well that "making sense of my life" and "living a life that matters" are measured against some standard I hold against myself. Yes, there are constructs society puts up but it still is up to me whether I will consider that my life has actually "made sense" or "mattered".

I am asking these questions because I am wondering why I didn't choose these other choices. I have a pretty good idea why I am doing what I am doing right now. Wait, I take that back. I have very little idea why I am doing what I am doing right now. (So many why's, it's not even funny anymore.) It's not to say one option is a better choice than the other. It's just growing up just means asking all these questions and crossing your fingers you get answers. Growing up also means being able to live with not getting the answers.

I ask why I am not teaching snotty 3-year olds for the sheer love of children. Or for the burning belief that education is so very important I will dedicate my life to is. I ask why I am not playing drums for a band and getting paid with free dinners, why I am not overcome by an all-consuming love for music. I ask why I am not a professional tennis player, why I didn't consider that an option.

I ask why I am not a writer, why I don't throw all my cares to the wind, spend my nights and days in artistic stupor, and not stop writing until I get my book published. I ask why I did not push through with the move to Biology. Yes, sometime in my sophomore year in college, I seriously considered shifting to Biology to pursue medicine. Why I chickened out and did not even try, why I did not even fill out shifting forms, I do not know until now. But yeah, mostly because the idea was too daunting, the idea too big, the thought of the move too scary.

I ask why I did not take up Sociology. I enjoy the social sciences immensely but I cannot find it in me to commit four years of my life to studying the social sciences. It was not a question of interest, it was more of a question of a big enough "why". I ask why I did not do anything about that "wanting to do theater" feeling I had back in college. I wonder how life would've turned out for me, if I ever did. Will I have liked it because that secret "thespian" has been laying dormant inside of me all this time? Or will I have gotten tired of it 3 months into it because again, it was all about the novelty for me?

I guess unless I get to answer "why I do what I do now" with at least a semblance of certainty, I have a pretty strong feeling the questions will keep eating at me for a long while.