Saturday, May 16, 2015

A Six plans her Third Act

For the past few weeks, for the past few months, I've been sick and exhausted.  As I sat and coughed, I started questioning, again, the way I was living my life. I did  the math, again, and realized that I can stop my 40-hour work week right now if I want to.  But what do I want to do instead?

I felt a rush of excitement.  The last time my world seemed so limitless, I was 22 years old, just graduated from college.  I could do anything, but I decided to move to the Pacific Northwest and figure out how to take care of myself.   My choice was going to determine the next 30 years of my life, but I didn't realize it at the time.  Instead, I boxed up everything I had:  4 boxes of stereo equipment, 1 box of dishes, 1 box of priority 1 books, 1 box of priority 2 books, and several more boxes of priority 3 books.   A box of records.  A box of winter clothes, a box of summer clothes.  Boxes of paper and other school work.  A trunk, a suitcase, and a violin came with me on the train, and my Dad mailed the rest after me in dribs and drabs.  It took a few years before the last box of books came my way, but it didn't take long to find a place to live, a job to do, and friends to play with.  I had a life, and my whole goal was to take care of business.  The limitless possibilities contracted to a settled domesticity, with plenty of activities, travel, and music.

30 years later, and I have fewer books, no albums or CDs or stereo system,  more clothes, and a LOT more dishes.  Not to mention furniture, art, and craft supplies.  But, I've pared down again, and I realize how very little I need to be happy.  I don't want to give up the beautiful things I've collected, but I don't need them.  What I want is to be free.  And, I no longer want to take care of business.  Or rather, taking care of business is no longer my primary goal. 

I am realizing that it's time to start figuring out the Third Act.  The First Act was preparation:  growing up, figuring out my skills, learning how to learn.  The second act was existing:  finding a way to be productive and creative, and doing it.  But, it was also preparation: while I didn't believe that the world and the economy of the future were predictable, I did spend a little time preparing for them.  Hence, the pension plan, the retirement fund, the house. 

Now, I'm cashing in the house, and I'm suddenly thinking:  should I cash in the rest?  Should I quit with the existing, and move on to the living?  Is it time to stop preparing and being and start acting?  I feel limitless, but restless.  I have been sitting here with my cold that has morphed into pneumonia and bronchitis.  And I think, there has to be more to life than working, sleeping, and coughing.   People are dying, strength is a finite commodity:  if I'm going to expand my horizons, I need to do it now.

So, I sent my discontent out to my siblings, to my friend-who-is-living-my-life, to M.  She was the only one nearby, and she came over to drink coffee and listen to me process out loud.  Then she said something I wasn't expecting:

"You need to figure out your health."  From her perspective, I am both accident-prone and fairly constantly sick.  She thinks, and she is not alone in this, that it's a symptom of something that needs to be healed, something that is holding me back.  A past life?  A current grief?  An anxiety?

I am taken aback, and even more taken aback when she tells me that I'm always dissatisfied.  Really?  I thought I found joy in my life, that I realized how very lucky I am.  I didn't feel like there was anything percolating beneath, pushing my mind and body around in unhealthy ways, preventing me from flying, growing, loving, feeling joy.  I'm not dissatisfied, I'm just tired, and not sure this is what I really want.

It's more about ambivalence.  Last fall, when I was debating about this move to Taos, another friend laughed and said, "You're such a 6!"  A 6 lives in the Thinking aspect, but also vacillates within that thinking.  A 6 needs the community, the stability, but is always testing that stability and community, never trusting it will be there, never trusting its own decisions, never trusting the future.  "I process out loud," I tell new workmates.  I've always said that was part of my collaborative nature, but it's also part of my ambivalence.  I'm never sure what I want to do or be, or how I want to get there. I need the input, whether I use it or not.  I'm looking for validation.

That's why I had M come over.

As it turns out, no one is validating the early retirement idea.  M wants me to take this time and heal.  My siblings want me to be stable for awhile longer.  Everyone wants me to recognize how good I have it.  As my brother said, a gazillion people would be happy to trade places with me.  True. 

I think about Jane Eyre:  "For liberty I gasped."  Her petition is blown on the winds, so she reframes it: she wants excitement, change.  But finally, she settles on "a new servitude." 

I do not want a new servitude, I do not want to meet Mr. Rochester. I still don't know what I do want.  I do know that I am excited about the idea of no longer being trapped in my preparation phase.  I can wait to initiate the Third Act, but I can see it close by, waiting for me to reach out and pull aside the curtain.  When the time is right, the act will begin.  And who knows where the plot will take me?

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