I tried to explain it to Cliff the other day: "I am really great at swinging from exciting tree to exciting tree. But, inevitably, there comes a point where you have to settle down a little bit. And it is there, in the space between exciting point A and exciting point B that a new place feels lonely."
I understand this. I expected it. It is the lull, the tough part of a transition where the shiny newness loses some of its appeal and the desire for the decidedly un-shiny, worn and comforting ruts of daily routine wells up.
It is important to me to greet each day with a certain zeal. One of my greatest strengths as a person is a sort of child like revelry in the realm of possibility. For a long time, I carried around a little card emblazoned with the words of Mr. Walt Disney: "It's kind of fun to do the impossible," and I fully believe that. Life is fun for its little conundrums.
As a child, I did things like cut up pieces of paper in order to put them back together, or write out long division problems that would take multiple pieces of paper to work out (and then I took them to my teachers to 'check;' dear god, I'm sure they loved that). I had a subscription to PuzzleMania magazine, I begged my mom to buy me workbooks from the school supply store and one very memorable time, I memorized the spellings of the ingredients on the back of a bubble bath label. (Gee, I was a fun kid...)
As a grown up...Did I just write that?!?! I recant the utterance of said subject. I am NOT a grown-up. Who is ever really a 'grown-up' for that matter? The addition of the 'n' to 'grow' implies that the growing process is complete, and I am fairly certain that the growing process is incomplete until the cessation of life. We are, therefore, 'grown-ups' only upon death...
Anyway. As someone aged beyond childhood, I still have a passion for a good puzzle. Put a good chunk of incomprehensible data before me and I'll sink my teeth in like a ladybug on an aphid. (The summer I was six, my best friend and I managed to capture a dozen ladybugs. I was very concerned about what they needed to be fed, so I did some research and found out they thrived on aphids, which just so happened to thrive on the very roses my mom grew in her garden! Roses= lady bug food!)
In fact, here is a confession: A year or so ago, while waiting for my graduate school advisor to return from a quick errand, I gave in to the urge to peruse the folder she'd left lying in front of me- the folder containing my confidential student records. On the left side was my application, along with three reference letters submitted by various mentors of mine. Curiosity and a shameful, yet inescapable and quite acknowledged, human tendency toward self interest won out and like a greedy little pig stumbled upon a pile of fresh slop, I scanned the contents. Each letter was kind- thank you, mentors- but, as I was a fairly typical early 20s graduate school applicant, fairly typical. There was, however, one remarkable thing. Each of those three letters, from three different advisors of mine, who had never met one another, much less conferred regarding the particular subject of yet one more requested letter of recommendation, chose to convey one message loudly and clearly: Kelsey thrives on learning new things.
And so (a great deal of anecdotal evidence later) it is. I like the new and interesting. I am forever and extremely interested.
I like this about myself, usually. But. (and there always is a 'but,' isn't there? Is that cynical? Or just true? I don't mean to be cynical...) A big part of growing for me has been learning to temper that magnetic attraction to the new and interesting with a certain contentedness with that which is still. It is a challenge for me to cultivate and refine my interest in the things which endure, to find, amidst all the new and active and yang, a place of quiet, established, still yin. And yet it is within this quiet, still place of receptivity that I have learned the most about myself, about the world, about living. This yin part of life is very much necessary to balance a yang energy with the potential to propel one to either great success or great turmoil. Yang is the momentum, but yin guides the movement.
Which brings me to what I meant to say in the beginning here, the point. I am still quite happy to be right where I am, in every sense of the word, right now. I am finding all sorts of fun little challenges, creating my own PuzzleMania, swinging from tree to tree. But (there it is again, the 'but...') the time has come to focus some more on establishing a comfortable place in the space between, and it's hard for me. Patience is required- when you're me, letting things happen tends to take longer than making things happen. ; )
The good news? I like a challenge.
To be continued.
