Ever feel stuck?
When I was a kid, I got my head stuck in a highchair. Family heirloom no less. Given the age and volume of heirlooms in my very small family, it is a wonder I, or any of the heirlooms, survived the 70’s.
1970’s. I’m old, but not pre founding of Baseball’s National League. (which was 2 Feb 1876 if you were wondering). Come to think of it, the highchair might have predated baseball.
I admit, having a highchair sawed to pieces while stuck in the pieces was traumatic. There is no way to sugar coat the stupidity of my action nor the destructive drama of the cure.
But I was free from the evil chair and with ample sawdust in my hair, I buried the trauma and went on with life my life.
Fast forward to today, with millions of choices under my belt; millions of smiles and tears; decades of life behind me and here I sit. Stuck in the chair.
Seated in a comfy recliner, not between the bars of an ancient death trap, but the similarities are uncanny.
Age and treachery caught up with me. Aches are now pains. My hair is fading to gray and falling away. Skin is thin; organs are fatty, and for some reason my liver has put spots all over my flesh. Menopause jumped on the band wagon and my memory strolled down the lane so exhaustion and insomnia could move in. Talk about feeling stuck. How do people move after 50?
Apparently they drink. Shop at John’s.
All those realities compound the feeling of stuck, and stuck leads to questioning, and reflection, and all kinds of regret. What did I do with my life? I tell people I am retired, but to be retired, one must have done something to retire from.
The word ‘retired’ comes from the Old French word ‘retirer.’ ‘Re-‘ meaning back, and ‘tirer’ to draw. Essentially means to withdraw. There. I learned ya somethin’.
I would gladly retire the role of ‘housewife’ as that was a dead end job I never wanted to begin with, but I struggle to claim I did anything other as a career. I tried for years to get fired from housewife, but the ‘professional hoarder of wealth’ position I was trying to obtain never materialized. So, I am stuck with housewife as the longest running gig on the resume.
Now I sit. Stuck in my chair, waiting for the dryer to finish it’s all important job. Kids grown; husband absorbed in his many careers; dogs bored with me and wanting to move into careers of their own. The elder was putting up flyers around the neighborhood to be a professional human walker. I refused to pay and we are no longer speaking.
But what a thought. Does the dog walk the human, or the human walk the dog? I will spare the you the debate.
Perspective is the karma of the mind. Thoughts, as actions, always come back to bite you in the ass.
Perspective.
I need to get out of the chair. The rungs were sawed off years ago, yet here I sit. In the chair.
My current stickiness is a frame of mind, I realize. I cannot blame menopause, or being a housewife for sitting in a chair.
The chair is a symbolic, self imposed boundary built to hold me in limbo until I have the realization; courage; insanity to do something different.
So get up. Get unstuck.
Obviously. The question is how? Most people would join a gym. Or take a class. Start a new hobby. Perhaps get a job or take flying lessons (did that. Did not stick.)
Yeah, I’m not most people. Can you imagine if I were? The world would need a lot of chairs.
I did have the vision at a very young age that I could rid myself of a very uncomfortable highchair by putting my head through the rungs… unconventional with a flare for the dramatic. I cannot simply stand up after starting life with sawdust in my hair, now can I?
SO! I am going to unstick my big behind from the chair and move it to the other side of the planet for 3 months because that is unusual. I am putting aside everything comfortable and normal to me and starting from the scratchiest scratch I can get. And I am doing it alone. Because that is scratchier than traveling with the pack.
What the hell was I thinking?
I was thinking I would talk myself out of it. That someone or something would stop me. That some pebble on the ground would become a boulder preventing my progress.
But I need to get unstuck. I need to alter perspective. I need… to do something.
Yes, I am afraid. Terrified to be honest. No idea what gremlin is living deep down in my psychic pool that swells these feelings when change is afoot, but there is a very real feeling of angst, apprehension, fear, generally unpleasant feelings which have kept me stuck in the head locked chair.
Somebody stop me.
Don’t you dare!
I can honestly and with full disclosure attest, despite the major changes I am processing in my body and mind; It is abundantly more terrifying to be stuck in the chair.
Is this entire thought process and upcoming experience outside my comfort zone? Hell Yes. Uncertain, nervous, apprehensive. Check all three boxes.
But the fear of sitting by and simply existing through the motions of life instead of living it is a greater terror.
The angst of sucking in air to sustain the body, the monotony, the comfortable chair slays any apprehension of inhaling, experiencing and nourishing the soul.
Semantics, perhaps, but there is a difference other than words.
Perspective. I need a new one.
I got out of the chair. I started planning this trip. I am flipping my life upside down. Going to the opposite side of the planet. To the other hemisphere. To a place where I will need to be present, alert and engaged to survive in an effort to change my perspective and use what is left of my life living instead of existing.
And that is what this blog is about. It is simply a way for my family and friends to follow me on my latest crazy tangent of trying to get unstuck. Perhaps some epiphany will grace me along the way so I may avoid the comfort of chairs in the future, but I’m not stuck on that.
