On Christmas Eve I overheard my mother and my aunt getting extremely excited over a new kind of dishcloth that can clean any surface with – wait for it – JUST water. Honestly. Wood, lino, kitchen surfaces…wow. I had a bit of a panic. Will I get to that point in my life when I start to get excited over good cleaning products? Will the stereotype remain through time at that level of intensity that, even though I have a job, my main career is cleaning up after husband and brats?
I love a messy room, filled with random stuff. Bottles, old keys, photos, magazine cuttings and jewellery being my favourite decorative items, I am comfortable surrounded by, well, crap. And junk. “Get rid of anything in your life that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.” But what happens when useful becomes the main priority? I just hate the thought of being that water droplet on a car windowpane that you watch slowly but surely trickle into the same course as all the others. Child. Teenager. Student. Adult. *Insert low earning and low achieving job title here.* Wife. Mother. Grandmother. Dead.
Is it childish to hope that I can lead a life of joy and adventure, a life to be remembered? I know all young’uns hope for it. And every single last one of us thinks “It won’t happen for most people…but it HAS to happen for me.” Because even with this sense of an ominous future looming ahead of me, I want to live. Not because it might be the only life I have, or life is short, or any other theological or philosophic reason. Mainly, I want to live my life how I want to, because I am selfish. Are you not?
The idea of having children doesn’t appeal to me. They seem to me to be like little anchors, which grown up and get heavier, and the whole time you are looking after them, keeping the rust off (with varyingly successful cleaning products no doubt) you don’t notice that your ship has been in the same god damn place your whole life. What have you achieved apart from continuing the human race? Not such a skill, I would say. I think my ideal is to find someone likeminded who I wanted to spend my life with, but not “settling down” as the phrase goes. But shaking it up. Doing and seeing everything, going everywhere. It seems bizarre, against the norm. But there is no reason why one shouldn’t aspire to something against the norm.
I wonder if, in 15 years, I’ll look back over the things I’ve written in this blog and laugh. Laugh because I am the only person to have read it, or because I have lost all of these hopes. Maybe. Maybe I’ll live in a 3-bedroom house, learn to cook and have lovely children and be really happy, see it as a success. A change of opinion that comes with growing up. But right now, that easy route the raindrops take? I would deem it a failure.
I get this feeling every now and then that my life won’t be as long as I assume it will be. As depressing as this sounds, it’s not something that bothers me. Que será será. As long as I have a million memories to occupy me on my death bed, I’ll be fine. Death doesn’t scare me. Dying in a painful way does, but that is just an inevitable fear.
Compare Annie Leibovitz and Rankin. Both extremely good photographers, known the world over. Rankin, albeit talented, is an arrogant money grabbing douchebag. In my humblest of opinions that is. A friend of mine worked with him briefly and informed me that he was very self important, pleased with himself. Now Leibovitz must know she’s good. She’s taken more Vogue covers than any other photographer, and captured a very impressive amount of celebs. But she has her privacy, she is modest. Apart from her overly publicised financial problems in ’09, she has keep to herself over the years. When I look at pictures of her, she has this look of content and knowing. Two things I strive to gain in life. So I guess what I’m saying is that I’m happy sauntering through life, rather than running so fast I miss everything on the way to the finish line. But once I get there, if I’m lucky, my trophy will consist of a wealth of mind-blowing memories. Well, if only time will tell, let’s give time time.
No comments:
Post a Comment