Tonight I went to see the movie “Wild” with Reese Witherspoon. It’s based on the true story of a woman who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail to deal with grief over the death of her mother and the end of her marriage. I felt a weird sense of privacy about this movie, making certain I was alone when I saw it..
Although moving and inspiring, I’m left with the same feeling of frustration and loss I experienced after reading “Eat, Pray, Love”. Both stories were about women who endured pain and took giant steps to come to terms with their lives and move forward and I identified on some level with both stories. So why the resentment?
I guess it’s because I’ve had pain and loss in my life and I currently have serious challenges I have to work my way through. Yet I also know that taking a month to go and meditate in India or eat my way through Italy is out of the question. Putting my life on hold to become purified through the experience of hiking for nearly 100 days is out of the question.
How, exactly, does one experience a spiritual epiphany between work, laundry, dishes and raising children? Much less continuing to have to deal with the same set of challenges continuously? The day to day monotony of life makes any triumphs of spirit seem fleeting. I can forgive a huge, horrendous hurt that someone inflicts, but how do I continue to forgive numerous cuts, bruises and betrayals emotionally that I know some will continue to wound me with? I can say that I am better, in many ways, than I’ve ever been with my depression. How do I continue to keep my head above water when I feel like life keeps pouring more on my head?
And what I’d love, what I would absolutely give so much for, is to be able to pause my life and go out and have my spiritual journey, uninterrupted by all of these endless daily challenges. I’d love to go off on some epic adventure where I have to face the loneliness and fear and sadness from the last decade of my life and work through it, without always having to play another role in-between. I’d love to take my laptop and pour my heart and soul and every ounce of emotion into the next great novel, without distraction and exhaustion playing a role.
Isn’t it easier to be our best selves when we are faced with the dramatic and grandiose? It’s easier to think about taking a bullet for someone than it is to think about having to put someone else ahead of us over and over. It’s easier to forgive an epic betrayal than turn the other cheek endlessly. Facing our mortality suddenly puts values into perspective, but trying to live by that same creed without the looming shadow of an hourglass is a hell of a lot harder.
I know people rise above great challenges than the ones I face. I feel like I’m poised on the edge of…something. How do I get that final push into clarity? How do I take the moments between responsibility and plan a life filled with more joy, beauty and awakening?
Because there are so many things I want and I’m just not certain how to get them. How do I take my life and transform it without the grand gesture?
Sex and the Single Soccer Mom 