Working Title

It's a struggle.
I wish I could say "it has been a struggle", putting the wrestling match in past tense. As in, finally, I have overcome.
No.
It is a struggle...
To figure out what I am going to do with my life, without wasting the moments I'm experiencing right now.
To understand and accept myself to be different than anyone ever imagined.
To be able to say, at the end of the day, I am content with this life of mine.

A rather stubborn struggle, as of late, has been this one:

What am I going to be when I grow up?

This question, coupled with a devastating sense of only having one life to live, has badgered me to the point of tears. Because along with that sense, comes reality. I'm pretty grown up. Not all the way, certainly. But pretty close. And I feel like a five year old, waking up every morning with a new idea. A five year old with enough cynicism to lay down at night and chide myself: "what in the world were you thinking?"

I came up with a list the other day. One of those, what would you do if you could do anything you wanted, lists. I was bold. I think my list included everything from an occupational therapist to a tattoo artist.

So this morning I woke up and went to work. My two year anniversary at this office is coming up. I'm moving up in the hierarchy... remaining invisible to the office hunk. There's some comfort in knowing exactly what to expect. But I feel my creative soul being sucked dry. I am drowning in a radiological pool of monotony. But, one blessing about this office, is it gives me time to think.

I opened a legal pad and started jotting notes in between files. A childhood dream had begun to rise, this time with a little more flesh, a little more culture. My bohemian self, needing a place of expression, was beginning to speak.

I could see it. My practical side always reminds me that things like these start small and grow. So any ideas I jot down are long-term, in the big scheme of things, ideas. We could call them goals.

But I'm bad with goals.

A fair-trade, organic cafe. Coffee, juice, tea bar. Bakery. Live music, displays by local artists. Mismatched furniture, low lighting. Ceiling fans and used books. Eco-conscious (not fanatically... just conscious). A place that would smell like coffee grounds and sandalwood.

I don't know how it would work.

I don't really know how anything works.

But I could see myself there.

In a way that was more congruent than anything I've thought or felt in a very long time.

When writing, I always start with a "working title". Meaning, it is simply there to fill a space. It may work. It may not. Most of the time it has to do with my intentions. What I intend to write. Good writers know intentions do not always flesh out. But that title is there. Holding a place.

My working title for this newborn idea?

I cannot take credit for it. And will not, if it indeed, comes to fruition.

Terra Incognita.

A place unknown. A way to identify a place that has yet to be explored. On old maps these words were sometimes replaced with the phrase, "Here be Dragons". Terra Incognita. When you first said these words, I got cold chills.

(Funny... the verse that comes to mind is Isaiah 55:8. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD." If you go back just a few verses in chapter 58, this is what the book of Isaiah says: "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.")

This would mean a degree in business.

Maybe I would cling to a double minor in psychology and photography.

This is all just a working title.

... I reread this blog a few hours later and feel kind of awkward and vulnerable about this working title. Kind of like you may not understand. Like I seem like a little girl playing dress up. Hmm, part of the process, I guess. Becoming vulnerable. I am navigating unknown places these days. And there are days when I feel as if I am battling dragons.

But the view is breathtaking.