I'm Slow

I've always been a bit slower-paced then everybody else. Even as a kid I knew it. Not academically, but just in my attitude towards life. 

My family bought our house back in the late 80's and the bathroom is this super gaudy, tacky pink, white, powder blue tiling with a blue toilet and tub to match. The tub/shower had sliding doors that were mirrors. It was super creepy to go in there when the electricity was out. When I was young I would go in there and sit in front of this big doors and wonder what my purpose was being here, why I was me and not someone else, and I'd even wonder if anyone else around me was real (don't be creeped out, you probably did something similar too so don't lie).

I didn't really have any goals, except being a kid, but it got a little worse once I hit high school because I was just drifting on life. I had no concept of anything past high school other than YOU GO TO COLLEGE. My SAT scores weren't very good (not a good tester) and I only applied to one school. The school I did apply to, the only one, I put in for a major I wasn't even that good at. It was a subject in school that was the only one that really sparked my interest and I didn't take very many semester hours in it til my senior year. Lucky me, I was accepted and I went to school for my new-found interest.

I still wasn't any good. My professors could see it but they couldn't do anything about it yet. At that point in time students in the art major couldn't get kicked out for awhile. They had to really show they were bad over an extended period of time. I was fortunate enough to miss the year where they started having the freshman do portfolio reviews to start kicking them out. Whoa, did I ever get a lucky break. Eventually, especially in drawing and painting, I became good. I became better than good at painting. But while everyone else seemed to have started off that way freshman year and then became all-stars by senior year I was still a tadpole who was growing.

I graduated. Now what? I've been working since I was 15 so, ok, I go work now. But I didn't have the drive to have a career like everyone else did. I was doing odd jobs and teaching and floating around again. Aimless. As Forrest Gump would say "All accidental-like on a breeze". I felt like everyone else had some confusion in their life but they had a far off point that they were hoping to get to so other things around them started building up as a foundation to get there. I had no foundation. Hell, I had no point.

When I look back I've had more jobs than I can count, I've moved around, I have a huge list of crazy things I've done, place I've been, characters that I've met....The younger people that I'm around at work say to me "You have a story for everything, and they're always so crazy!" It's true. I do. But sometimes it makes me feel a little off. Don't get me wrong, I have great memories, but I asked my husband on the phone tonight "What do you feel your purpose is here? Why are you here?" and he said "To live a full life."

What does that mean?

He said it was to be with me and for us to be happy and for him to like his work. That's his point. He knows it's his point and he does what he can to get there. His foundation is set. He might change varying aspects of it as he gets older where one job that meant something to him no longer does that so he switches jobs, but his goal is the same. To like his work.

I find that unlike other people I have a hard time committing to things which doesn't allow me to pick a point. If I pick a point then how do I know it's the best one? Sometimes other people's lives look so easy, and not that I mean that they are lazy, but that it's great but effortless. I'm not naive enough to think that's actually the case but more often then not mine feels like more of a jumble than anything else.

I'm 30 and I'm just as confused as I was when I was 7 sitting in front of that bathroom mirrors. Forrest Gump was special needs and he was successful because he didn't over-think things. I can't say that's a strong-suit of mine. Maybe that's why I tend to lag behind while everyone else seems so put-together.

How do you feel?