Umiko

I'm just going to write. I don't care how it all comes out and in what format, or in what order. It's all jumbled in my head anyways, so maybe I can make sense of it later. Many fragments, little wholeness.

As my husband has been gone the last week, I've felt the inner pull to prepare my heart for the future. We're embarking on a path together that wasn't in my vision of the future. I thought we would get out of the military, go back "home" and start our own brand of life together. That changed, and with that change I feel like I have to change, too.

This whole last year, plus some, has been one long-winded change of all kinds. At times it's been really difficult to find a branch to grasp on the long fall from the top of the tree. In essence, it's been like falling from "here" to "there", and "there" is the here and the now, the reality, ground level.

Becoming a wife, a military wife, a mother, a housewife, a person taken out of her familiar element. Taken further away from my own ambitions, my personal desires, the things I used to fill my days with. At times it's been unsettling, others it has been amazing, mostly it's somewhere in between the latter two. I know, without a doubt, that I am not the first or last woman who has had to struggle with coming to terms with my role as a person changing. Also, having to deal with my own sense of identity, grasping at the tangled remains of who I was, who I want to be now, who I want to be in the future.

I miss the feeling of being able to create my life one day at a time without regard to tomorrow. For many years I lived my self-created adventure. I laughed in the face of ho-hum existance and tried to make even the small things exciting, meaningful and memorable. I think of myself as a person that tries to live "deeply", absorbing as much in as I can handle and then maybe a little more, just for good measure.

I've become awfuly complacent about my life recently. There are phases that last for a few months and I ride the high of evolving and changing and then it pitter patters out to blahness again. I did a group book study on a couple of books and felt wholly and completely invigorated, then I went into the practical stage of putting the new things I had learned into application and now I'm here. Here is not pretty, here is not nice. Here is a little bit stagnant, a little bit dark. And I don't like it! I figure this is a good place to start - not in denial, but recognizing that I have come to this place and now is the time to start shaking things up. If you've been reading, then you've probably caught wind that I haven't been feeling 100% fulfilled in general.

I think it all boils down to me and how, in the process of all this change, I forgot to create a new vision for myself and my future with my family. The balloon of passion that has been steadily carrying me through life has lost some elevation and I know that now is the time to start pumping it back up.

One of the big things that has been missing in my life is the creative process. Yes, I've been knitting, but it's for the most part a solitary activity. And solitary is how I feel. I feel a little like a social butterfly with her wings folded together. When we moved here I moved away from a church where I volunteered a lot of my time. I moved away from a really fun full-time tattoo job where I got to meet new people and hear new stories all the time. I moved away from all the interesting countries that were a day's drive away. I moved away from my then-budding interest in creative photography. I was spontaneous, always creative, always on the move.

Now, I stay at home quite a bit so that my son is well-rested and well-fed, and also so that I can see my husband for short stints between his ever-changing, all-demanding job schedule. Life with a young child is a beautiful thing, but it is also poses a restraint to spontaneity. And time. All that time I spent with a tattoo machine in hand, a camera in my face, my hands on the wheel - replaced by the here and the now. I'm left wondering - how do I win some time back for me? I don't want to lose touch with myself any further. I don't want to throw in the towel and become the "white button-down, jeans and sneaker-wearing soccer mom in the suburbs". I'm not saying there is anything wrong with being that person, I'm just saying it's not me.

And that's all I've got on my plate right now. I feel like I have to become a little stronger again because there are times ahead of me that will require me to be much more self-reliant and proactive. I need to prepare my heart for strength against temptation, for patience and more kindness.

I was just enjoying a late night sit outside. A thought crossed my mind. I thought about burning/deleting all of my journals, written and digital. I'm not sure why I even thought of it, to be honest. Since I was very little and started journaling, my diaries have held a sacred place in my life. I'm a person who likes to hold onto things - people, memories, well-liked possessions.

The written account of my life has followed me through the years. My books have traveled with me through many moves, from various homes in Michigan to multiple apartments in Germany, even farther away to Turkey, and now back in the States, to Virginia. Once a year or so I'll page through some of the books. They are filled with all different kinds of handwriting, colored inks and many were gifts from close friends and family. Some of my journals are filled with boring details of who-what-whens, many entries are about who I was doting on at the time, other writings are painful, dark and downright depressing.

I have written about first loves, first lovemaking, fears, abuse, drugs, crimes, my walk with the Creator, friends and family, travels, poetry, simple happiness, pregnancy, books that have touched me, disappointment, confusion, revelations, deep depression, hopelessness: the good, the bad and the ugly. Unfortunately, the bad and the ugly are dominant themes in too many of my entries. When I do read back, I'm left with the lingering feeling of the past's darkness. And that feeling is sometimes hard to shake.

There are times, like tonight, when I question my motives about holding onto my journals. Although my life has been interesting to me, that doesn't mean I would ever want to expose it to the public by having it published. Most of the time I don't really enjoy reading about my past. Even though I love and trust my husband very much, I would never feel comfortable having him read in explicit description the details of my life prior to our marriage. In a way, it's the only thing or part of myself that I don't share with him. I think it's okay to have something that is just mine in a way, but there's also a part of me that feels like it's something that I passively hide from him. A lot of what I wrote is embarrassing even to me. The writing was often immature and superficial, mundane, and sometimes... sometimes just not really me. Some of the things that I have written about make me want certain individuals in my life again that shouldn't ever be in my life again. Some entries make me remember certain painful experiences and I relive the pain, neglect and hate that I once felt. These are not positive things. And for me, these feelings are especially unhealthy because I have worked so hard to expunge them from my heart and mind.

So again, why am I holding onto them? The only real purpose that my journals have served up until now is to remind me that things are not always as they are remembered and that I've come a long way from being the person I was and have a long way to being the person I will or want to be. Rereading that last sentence is maybe my answer. Maybe I just need a reminder so that I will remember what to never be again.

I don't know, I'm not ready to destroy them yet, but I think there might come a day when I will be ready.

It occurred to me tonight that I've been neglecting my blog. That's what happens when life happens I suppose. My husband's work schedule has been pretty crappy as of late and I don't get much done during the day when he's gone. On the weekends we've been busy with Christmas shopping and enjoying family time together. I've been knocking out a couple knitted gifts, but I'm not nearly as far as I was hoping to be. Luckily we have a 16 hour car ride home, so I just may be able to get all my gifts done on time.

While attending a Christmas party a couple days ago I struck up a conversation with a girl I know and found out that she babysits. Hello? Can I get an amen? She's home schooled, so she's flexible - and that is wonderful. I'm doing a test run with her tomorrow afternoon while I go see New Moon with my neighbor. I had a comical moment while talking to my husband about the new babysitter... My babysitting days don't seem so far behind me and now I'm the one doing the hiring. It's hard feeling time slip out of my hands so quickly. In a few months I'm going to wake up and be 26 years old. The closer that 30 comes the more my head can't wrap itself around the fact that my twenties are speeding by me.

We live in a society that glorifies perpetual youth and vitality and I'd be arrogant to say that it doesn't affect me to some degree. I don't see the same person in the mirror these days. There are perceptions and ideas changing in my thoughts and I feel like I'm moving forward to another level, one where I have to leave certain things behind. It's a little scary, but it's also invigorating. I can only hope that my maturity level catches up with my age soon! Hahaha... Or not. I wonder if other women feel the same pressure to "grow up" that I've felt. From one day to the next I have to ask myself how other people perceive me and whether I care or not. If I should care or not. Does it even matter?

One comfort in the progression of my age is that I don't feel like I missed out on anything. I've done so much and more than what I wanted to do in life. While my friends were pursuing higher education I was in the trenches of my tattoo apprenticeship and seeing the world. It wasn't what I thought I was going to do. In High School I daydreamed about going into the psychiatric field, but I never had the vision. As in literally, I could not visualize myself going to college and doing it. When I slept at night I dreamed of the world outside of where I grew up, the foreign customs I'd only read about and the voluptuous adventure life could be if I didn't just go with the flow and refused the standard. I am so happy I firmly believed in my dreams and was blessed enough to live them out - or live through them, in some cases. I'm glad that when the wrinkles start to set in and I have to wonder if my eventual teenagers will be on the right track, I won't have to sit down and worry that life shorted me of something or that I didn't go for the gold when I had the chance.

Yeah, it's the one of the topics you don't bring up in social situations. Probably for good reason. I'm not going to air my views here, I'm not even going to define them. What I will do is yack for a moment about other people's views and how they choose to express them.

One link led to another and I landed on a very opinionated man's blog about politics. His posts were, from beginning to end, all negative. He listed off one terrible act after terrible occurrence. It was a lot like watching the (bad) "news" on television. I am all for freedom of speech and expression, but I am just as much for personal responsibility and accountability. I am so very tired of the blame game. I'm also tired of the comparison game, the magic-answer game and the downright negative everything's-going-to-hell game.

I think that if people stopped complaining about this and that and instead chose to become more proactive, issues that seem to so disturb certain people may have the chance of being solved. I think that if we stopped pointing fingers and started using our hands for good more would be accomplished. Words accomplish little, but hands can mold, shape and change things!

I don't think it's okay to spread hopelessness to a nation that needs hope. I don't think it's okay to spread the message of hate to a nation and a world that has a lot of learn about tolerance and true love. Yet, most importantly, I don't think it's okay for all these people to think they know how to run the world better than the next man, when they should be praying instead of judging.

I know, in a perfect world. Such the idealist.