I hate to admit I am so very dependent on Reader Poll Monday questions, as I really have nothing worth saying otherwise.
I left work well after 9 p.m. Wrote the bulk of copy for two weekly newsletters, so I’m feeling somewhat accomplished. My byline doesn’t appear on ‘em (so don’t go searching!). That’s OK, I guess. If they suck, I feign ignorance. 
But really, I am surprised what I find when I pull things out of my butt — it’s a veritable magic tophat, I say. I’m surprised by either how much I really do know or how completely I’ve gotten myself fooled that I understand the subject matter.
My main goal in my vocation, no matter where I’ve been, is to learn everything. First, to surpass my peers in knowledge/ability, then to master anything I can. I do not enjoy leaving things up to someone else. I can ask for help, but I get antsy when I can’t do what is asked of me because it requires someone else’s skills/equipment/savvy. It’s not a control thing, just a way to — when I promise that I will take care of something — actually say it with conviction because I know how possible it is instead of waiting for others to rise to the occasion.
But then again, I would like to start moving in the direction of mastery of specific things than doing a bunch of things somewhat well. I would like to be able to pick and choose what’s right for me and help others to grow into what works for them.
I’ve had a series of converations lately with people who know a lot about life, and I am starting to realize in a big way how some dreams slip so far out of reach that you’d never recognize them if you fell over them — like we outgrow them — yet how other goals grow out of the ashes — things you would never have considered because you didn’t even know they existed, let alone were within the realm of possibility.
I have a new set of dreams that I’m hammering out in my head. That means sucking it up and having the patience and resolve to deal with the insomnia (and its accompanying nightmares) currently before me. One wonders whether the happy little thoughts in our head, in our imaginary playlands, are meant to fuel our fire and keep us energized for better days, or whether they’re a glimpse of what’s going to happen and it’s our job to work toward those images.
I’m working on my 10-year plan for my life. If I am exactly where I am in a decade, or even half of that time, shoot me. Do not resuscitate, do not pass go, just make it quick — I’ve suffered enough. You just can’t make a big, life-sized boo-boo (or 20) and expect you’ll ever recover from it.
The fact is, once you make a mistake or two in your life, you will spend the rest of that life paying for them. I forget what happy is like, or for that matter, comfort. I spend every day thanking God that things weren’t/aren’t worse. I worry to death that the most horrible time in my life could recur. My female counterparts have a similar fear of becoming a bag lady, no matter how hard we’re trying to not let that happen. What I wouldn’t give, instead, to just be grateful that things just couldn’t seem like they could get any better.
