Settling In… Or Just Settling?
Now that the holidays are over, we’re back in our normal routine. I’m working my two jobs. Kelly is working at the hospital four or five days a week. Harrison is going to school, and Olivia is doin’ her thing over at the daycare. We spend family time together on the weekends, and we focus on improving the finances bit by bit. I’m a little tired, but it’s nice.
I’ve been very happy with both of my jobs. The Art Institute is just fun. Everyone I work with is great, and while I feel a little out of the loop since I’m not there all day each day, I think I’ve made a good addition to the team. I hope everyone else feels that way as well. The projects have been interesting, and while my efforts aren’t incredibly significant, I’m hoping that what I do is helping.
Garmin is less fulfilling from a psychological or emotional standpoint, but it’s a secure rock on which to build a career. We’ve already been more successful at saving money than ever before, and my retirement investments are going strong. I’m not crazy about holding down yet another technical support position somewhere, but I won’t be doing support forever.
The kids are doing pretty well. Harrison has just become this wonderful young man, and I hope he retains his beautiful little spirit throughout his life. He is fun-loving, accepting of others, and really likes to encourage others and make people happy. Olivia, as always, is a little more challenging, but I love her strong spirit (despite the conflict it often brings to our home). The kids are amazing people, and they keep getting bigger and older.
This whole parenting thing is pretty surreal. I look at the pictures of my family on the mantle sometimes, and it’s like they’re strangers… like I’ve stepped into the house for the first time, and I’m having to learn about who they are all over again. That’s how quickly things change.
Even I’m changing a lot. My schizo-ambition has settled some, and I’m learning to enjoy simpler things. I’ve always had this strong dichotomy inside of me, a battle between serenity and acheivement. I always believed I was destined for something big. A scientific breakthrough. A technological advancement that would change America, or even the World. I dunno. I always hoped I would be someone big. Someone people could admire and maybe even idolize. I suppose I had a little bit of a complex about it. Things came easy for me in school, so I guess I expected them to always be easy.
On the other hand, my deepest longing has been simply for, well, simplicity. I want quiet, and peace. I want stillness.
I don’t know if anyone has ever really taken the time to notice, but these two things are pretty much mutually exclusive, unless “bhuddist monk” is your career choice. You can’t be ultra successful at anything without drive, intense focus, and a lot of work. That leaves little time for take time to appreciate the little things in life.
My kids have helped a lot to take my edge off. So has failure, believe it or not. I know that sounds a little bit odd, like I’m admitting defeat. That’s not what I mean. Failure is a very interesting tool. It’s kind of like a forest fire. It comes through and ravages a part of your soul, only to have beautiful, new growth come up through the ashes.
I feel like I’ve gained a patience I used to not have, and a quietness inside that wasn’t really there before. I’m not so anxious to get past this minute to I can reach the next, only to do whatever is possible to rush through that minute as well. Despite the fact that I’m still conflicted about some of the recent changes we’ve made, with moving and buying a home, etc., I think a small piece of me has actually discovered something I’ve always desired but never managed to get a hold of: contentment.
My little seed-like soul, that has been drifting around on the wind of this life, has finally touched down and begun to push down into the soil with a tenuous root. A little piece of me has finally been able to lay quiet. It’s a great thing, and I don’t want to give it up. I sometimes have a hard time trusting myself, because I know myself. I know that I’m prone to moodiness and volatile attitudes. My desires change on a whim, like I’m a spinning top that hasn’t quite come to rest.
My biggest concern is that I may be settling for a life that I don’t want. After all, I know what I would choose if I could, and yet I decided to leave that life back in Colorado for the good of my family. I made a choice contrary to what I really want. I was at peace while I was in Colorado, but somehow, I always knew it was a peace of a temporary nature. I know it was a “just for now” kind of thing and that one day, something would take me a way. But this tiny kernel of stillness I’ve found, the placid part of my soul—it feels different. It feels like it has truly taken redisidence in me, and will change my whole being from the inside out.