First off, Happy Mother's Day! I hope you all have a great day with your mothers and/or children. (And by the way, a sentiment becomes all the more heartfelt when you use the term and/or.)
Last Sunday I talked about the road trip and my twin goals of survival and continuing to love my family at the end of the trip. Obviously we survived, but let me say something on the issue of survival. I am paranoid about cars and driving, and I generally begin each long trip assuming that we won't make it to the other end alive. You're in a small metal tube careening down a road at 65 mph, putting your trust in the hands of hundreds of strangers in other metal tubes. I have never been the world's most confident driver (something about failing driving school, barely passing my DMV test, and spending my late teens hitting inanimate objects), so driving stresses me out. I mean, it's not like I'm hyper-anxious every time I get in my car to drive to the grocery store or something (I got over that around the time I was about 17), but I don't like long road trips.
Anyway, we survived.
As for still loving my family ... I think Andrea said it best when she noted that the goal was to love my family at the end of the trip, not during it. I mean obviously I still loved them the whole time, but there were definite periods of not liking them. Why does my husband insist upon listening to poor-quality radio shows from the 1930s? Did Nathan need to make that high-pitched incessant noise repeatedly from the backseat? How can you possibly have to go to the bathroom again? (That last question was for Bill, not Nathan.)
But in those last two late-night hours of the trip, we all came together in our shared goal to just get the hell home, and we felt like a cohesive, loving family unit. Bill and Nathan happily played a guessing game, and I felt grateful for my brave night owl husband's willingness to get us home during the wee hours of the night.
So, I still love them.
And now it's a new week. Yesterday I mentioned that I've been feeling really adrift vis-a-vis my big plans for the future and my ability to feel like a productive citizen. I also mentioned that I've been using day-to-day responsibilities and chores as an excuse not to think about these bigger issues. Admittedly it has been easy to get bogged down with chores lately because I was entertaining guests and then preparing for/going on/recovering from a road trip. But now I'm back! And now it's summer(ish)!
And now I need to Make a Plan.
I'm not saying that during this week alone, I will have the whole rest of my life figured out. I'm just saying that this week I need to come to terms with the fact that I'm so scared by the unknowns of my future that I refuse to do anything. Like, did you know that I haven't written for Technorati at all in 2011? And I've never written for Blogcritics at all? And while writing for these sites isn't going to unlock some super awesome opportunity for the future, it might drive a little more traffic to my blog, and the new readers might present some kind of new opportunity. As I've said before, I can't do everything, but I need to do something.
So, my goal for this week is to begin to formulate a plan. I'd be more specific here, except I have no freaking clue what I'm going to do.
Now go wish Super Ima Leigh Ann a Happy Mother's Day!
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