YOU ARE HERE

You know those directory maps inside of huge disorienting shopping malls that help you when you don't know where to start or which way to go? They always have an indicator on the key that says "You Are Here." I feel like I had a real life moment like that today. Except that the mall is actually my life, and I am still disoriented and lost and need to be told where I am, lest I walk around thinking I'm on the third floor with all the high end shops, when in reality I'm just sitting in my car in the parking lot, thinking I'm in the mall already. So here I am sitting in my car. Looking out at a garage. Nature splayed around it like an after thought. What am I doing here? Earlier today when I was talking with my brother and joking as we do about things that should not be joked about, I prompted a little discussion on what would happen if I took off and just started my life over in Italy. Alone. Completely hypothetical of course. He didn't even flinch. You know how you kind of what someone to worry and say "hey don't get any crazy ideas, okay?" He didn't so much as take a breath before he spewed out that it was highly unlikely something so spontaneous would come from me. "Hah" he said. "It'll never happen." Why? I protested. Wanting to know now why he didn't share the same view as me with me being adventurous and daring in life. Simply stated and not trying to spare feelings in the least- cause that's just not what you do with a sibling; there's some sort of unspoken clause in your relationship as brother and sister that allows you to say the stuff you only wish you had the gall to say to friends and significant others. Although my husband does a pretty good job of telling me like it is,too. Basically he said as he looked in the mirror and got ready for work: "you have too many anchors." imagine that. While everyone else is telling me to go for it and follow my dreams, and life is what you make it. Here is my blood relative saying I am to constant and stable and "anchored" to ever do any of those things. What can I say? I was a little deflated. I argued naturally, to try and make him change his opinion about what kind of person I am. Maybe he just doesn't know me that well I thought to myself. Maybe he knows me all too well. The fact is he's right, while he's been off gallivanting through several career paths and relationships and states, I've been here. With the same job, going to school living at home, taking care of the growing brood.Looking from the outside in, it appears I am not quite the adventurer I like to think myself to be. Is everyone just being nice when they tell me I could actually conquer these unharnessed dreams of mine? Is it too sad to tell the pathetic mother of 2 that chances are she'll be in exactly the same spot 20 years from now? Only older, heavier and instead of dreams filled with regret? Why do I feel like there's a chance I can still change my life around so that I'm not so predictable and conventional. I once told a guy I dated that my biggest fear was to be a married, the mother of two, working as a housewife. He said maybe it's what I actually want out of life and not what I feared at all. If so, why all the unsettled feeling. Don't get me wrong I love my family. But I want to take them with me on an adventure of a lifetime. And to make my lifetime an ongoing adventure. Didn't I conquer teen statistics that said I'd probably never go to school, and therefore always live in poverty? Haven't I come so far from that place? I feel like I have been picked up by the collar and dropped back into that zone of lowered expectations. I keep fighting against this current. I feel like my arms might give out but I'd rather lose my arms than my heart. I don't care what anyone expects of me or sees when they look at the life I lead. I am going to lead life instead by the horns where ever I damn well please. God willing.