Finding Satisfaction

I look around my messy livingroom filled with kids' toys, blankets, and children. I think for a moment "How lucky I am". I do this hundreds of times a day. I am lucky. I am extremely happy and satisfied with my life.

What if I wasn't?

What if I hit a mental satisfaction plateau? What if I found my husband, my children, my job, my life to be less than I want, even if it's everything I need?

I think this sense of need to be completely satisfied every minute of every day is what causes most of the misery in my generation - those of us who live in North America, at least.

We see divorce, abortion, financial instability as necessary, because we feel like we DESERVE to be totally happy in all areas of our lives all the time. Nothing is worth living through, nothing is worth fighting for. Nothing is worth anything, except our own happiness. If you don't feel absolutely fulfilled in your marriage, get a divorce. If a child would be inconvenient, abort. If you aren't totally content and appreciated in your job, quit.

It's "the grass is always greener" taken to its final extreme where we are persuaded to chase dreams rather than to live reality.

And it's causing more pain, more depression, and more horror in more lives than any of us would like to admit.

Posting for the sake of posting...or something like that.

So the purpose of this post is to move the last post down on my screen. Weird, I know, but every time I've gone to my blog to see the title "Randomly depressing thought" as the title of the last post, I get squirmy and feel like a whiny teenager.

I'm going to be 30 in a few months. Time to lock up my more juvenile thought patterns, no?

My brain is percolating lots of thought fragments at the moment, none of them finished enough to actually put on paper.

Thanks to a friend I might try writing for awhile tonight, after my husband is home and my 3 little darlings are asleep...

Random depressing thought...

Why is it that someone who is fairly intelligent and cognizant of the effects of the media on her perception of her physical self is still susceptible to it? Why, even though I know it's not healthy, not real, and an artificial part of my psyche am I so driven to attain the level of perfection levelled at me by the cold uncaring body we label as "media"?

Most importantly, how do I make it stop?

Just so you know what you're getting into...

I thought I should take just a minute to introduce a part of the mind you've stumbled onto - thereby giving you the chance to move it along, introduce yourself, or pick a fight (that last won't work, BTW, but you might make me cry.)

On my FB profile, I have my political leanings listed as: Socialist-Liberal-ProLife-Conservative...Welcome to Heatherland! I can't simply label myself as any of those things, since I've taken parts of them all and mishmashed them together to create (for me) the perfect mix of humanism, fiscal responsibility, and realism.

That being said, there's not a darned thing in the prolife movement that I don't stand behind. It's really my one political sticking point which, as a Canadian, might make it impossible for me to vote for any party (whenever an election rolls around...) for the first time since I've been 18.

I'm also a feminist, I suppose, but I am also a "masculinist" - I think men should be allowed to be as "manly" as they wish, and women by now should have earned the right to be whatever they darn well please. That for me is to be a SAHM while my husband goes out and earns the dough to feed our kids. When I have to return to work after my mat leave expires (deep breath, it's not for nearly a year, I'll survive, I'll survive...) it's to a job that is traditionally female, nurturing, child-based...yup I'm a teacher - hoping to get a contract as an early elementary teacher, no less.

No business school for me. I dislike money, and really really hate capitalism and consumerism. No big bucks, no fancy car. I get by on handmade (and misspelled) thank you cards, and plenty of drawings of me and a student holding hands and smiling.

I also like having summers off, it's true. I spend a large chunk of them tutoring struggling children and adults who are trying to get their GED to have a better life.

I'm Catholic too. Rather newly converted to the Church of my childhood, but that's another story.

You still here? Haven't run screaming, haven't written 2 or 3 nasty comments on my faith, my politics, my inherent belief in life over all? Thanks for depositing a few cents in my bank of human goodness. If, after all there is anyone even reading this...

I have ideas on blogging as a diary versus blogging as a valuable addition to the wealth of knowledge to be found on the internet. Not sure what this blog is shaping up to be just yet. I'll keep you (me?) posted.

Why am I doing this? No...seriously.

I should probably explain why I'm taking up valuable (??) web-space to unload my penny-value thoughts.

I want to be a novelist. In fact, I'm nearly done my first novel. I've been nearly done my first novel for almost a year. I cannot seem to bring myself to finish it. Perhaps I'm trying to prolong the process, perhaps I'm scared that when it's done it will have to be read, which in my mind equals judged. Perhaps I don't think it's any good and I'm trying to avoid wasting any more time on it. Perhaps I'm flighty.

I'm not sure, but it's probably a mix of all of those.

So here I am, at my husband's computer, listening to MarioKart for Wii, watching my 3 week old daughter nap soundly on the nursing pillow on my lap.

I think blogging might be fun, in a sort of reverse-voyeristic-diary of meaninglessness way.