What makes me so afraid? Who is the one who is scared?

I have been thinking a lot about genetics and memories; how many of our memories are ours? I don’t mean remembering your kindergarten teacher, but rather, the memories that trigger our responses to things. How do I deal with change? How do I deal with control and the fear of the future?

Please forgive me as I wax poetic a bit here; it may be too many episodes of Northern Exposure, or too many trees, the way the light looks on the water each day, or the way the light itself is changing as we make our way out of summer. Hard to say.

I want to make this big change in my life. I want to quit my teaching job and get a new job and become an art therapist, even though I am already an art therapist. I want to learn more about it so that I can do it more meaningfully. I want to volunteer/work for hospice and talk to people who are dying, and their families. I want to work with kids who are on the autism spectrum. I want to work with people who have cancer, brain injuries, who are old and who are young.

In about a week or so I have to make this decision and pull the trigger of stability and quit the job that the school district so graciously gave me back in April or May. I feel sort of guilty about this, but not really. I feel that all of us who serve others understand the spirit of a calling; something that tugs at your heartstrings so hard you’d be a fool to not pay attention.

Part and parcel of this desire, though, is this fear. It is REAL. It is fierce. It says: what if you end up under a bridge? What if you can’t find a job? What if you can’t pay your mortgage? What if you disappoint everyone? Isn’t that interesting?

Last night was my mom’s 73rd birthday and I concocted a whole plan for her birthday: fancy dinner out at a fancy restaurant. Within about 20 minutes I recognized that this was all about ME and not anyone else. My mom was answering texts about real estate on her phone, River and Maddy were talking about whatever it was on their phones, Cody looked uncomfortable, my brother and I were just sitting trying to make it all tolerable and workable. We went to the Claremont, which is so pretty, but we stood out like sore thumbs in our lack of pink wealthy Hawaiian print and Indian block print dresses. Cody felt that everyone was looking at him; I knew better. They wanted us to look at them. Dinner was delicious if not exciting, but it was insanely expensive and so, yet again, I learn a lesson by it literally being charged to my bank account. $410 for 6 people seems, even for Maine in July, a bit much.

WHAT AN IDIOT – I said to myself all night, not sleeping. I said it all day, too.

I am about to go to bed now, and try to let it go. An expensive lesson, but a good one. My mom doesn’t care. We could have gone out for ice cream. I so desperately want her to be happy that I spent $410 on that hope; in vain. She isn’t happy, she doesn’t want fun. She is who she is.

Gah.

OK so maybe I am not an idiot, perhaps I am a deluded hopeful person (not much difference there). My mom is definitely at the forefront of my mind’s eye when I think of quitting my job and starting something totally new. I want her visage to go away. I don’t think it’s really real.

So who is afraid? Is my grandma? My grandpa? My father? My nana? I dedicate the next few days to that exploratory mission.

Good night.