The weather in Seattle lately, it’s like I have to pack an anorak, scuba flippers, open-toed sandals, and a scarf every day because of the hot! Cold! No, hot again! Rainy! Sunny! I’m a little tired of all my clothes and I wish I didn’t have to wear all of them, in shifts, for some part of the day.
You know what else is hot and cold lately? My feelings about the Top Secret Plans. I just found out I’d made (ANOTHER) huge mistake there, which I righted this morning with minimal drama, I am happy to report. But still. Ever since the end of March, when I made the big push to get the Plans in gear, I’ve been playing this waiting game. I expect to play it for several more months, if not the rest of 2005. There’s nothing I can really do except wait right now (except make more discoveries about how I’ve messed something else up) so I haven’t been thinking or writing much about it as of late. It’s receded into the background a little and so it was quite a shock to even be reminded of them.
Originally, when I first conceived the Top Secret Plans, when I was young and innocent and full of feeling, I thought they might come to fruition in, like, October or something. I thought about how exciting it would be to be planning something new, and how I would write a big dramatic entry about what the Plans were and how they were going to change things. I guess this was during the fall, when I was so horrifically sad all the time. Part of how I got through that very sad time was to imagine the Top Secret Plans in every detail. It’s going to get better, I told myself, just hang on and think of the Plans! Plans ahoy! Working on them and taking the first couple of steps was very satisfying, and I felt proud of myself right after my birthday when I finished the first big huge crazy step.
And now…well, I wait and wait and wait and wait. For months, potentially, to find out if I can take the next steps to make the Plans really real. In the meantime, there are some other, interim, aspects that have been very difficult to deal with, because they involve some family stuff that is kind of killing me a little. There are letters to be sent and phone calls to be made and it’s all fine and good and I think I can handle it but a little of the spark has gone out of the whole thing, between the having to wait and having to deal with annoying details and having to do family stuff I’d rather not do. Sometimes it feels like I am wasting my time and energy and money on these Plans, when it seems I could be doing a lot of other fun and awesome things instead.
Oddly, part of this is that I’m no longer sad all the time, and so I’m not constantly thinking about how to change the outer circumstances of my life, with the hope that my inner circumstances would change as well. I have much more reason to just keep going as I am now, without doing anything really new or exciting…because the way I am now is a lot of fun, frankly. I’m pretty excited about my summer and I have a lot of ideas about some new stuff I’d like to try in the near future. I’m having some new thoughts about what I’d like to do for work and money. I’m really in love with all my friends right now, and feeling especially in love with Seattle, fickle weather-wise as she is right at this moment. I can’t even tell you how happy I am to be moving to my new house in a couple of weeks, and how glad I feel to be bellydancing twice a week lately. It’s very nice.
But! Is any of this compatible with the Plans? I have to confess here, the Plans are really great. I mean, if I get to do the Plans, I will be so super excited and it will be so super cool and…I say this without ego, here…you will totally want to be me. You will write me anguished emails saying “Chiara! Those plans! How did you ever come up with such a brilliant idea!” and I will have to nod and blush prettily and say, “Oh, you know. Just happened.” If the Plans happen the way I want the Plans to happen, it will be life-changing for me, I think, in every way, and I would have to give up some of the things I really like about my life. A lot of things, actually. That’s a little daunting now, in a way it wasn’t back in October or whatever, but it’s still exciting to think about a huge change.
But of course the Plans might NOT happen! And what am I supposed to do until I even find out if they’re going to happen? There are so many reasons I might not get to do this, most of which have nothing to do with me at all. I can’t see putting my life on hold until I figure out what’s going to happen in the future, but of course the more awesome my life becomes, the harder it is to think that I might have to give a lot of it up for a while. I don’t want to be as miserable as I was back when I started thinking about all this, but I have to say that misery did have its uses. It’s really hard to balance the here and now with the thought of the future; I know I’m not the first person to discover this but it doesn’t make it any less of a challenge.