Sunday, June 19, 2011

London or bust...

So it's been a almost a month since I went to London on my own.  Those four days were absolutely life-changing.  I traversed the ocean on my own, set foot on foreign soil on my own.   I toured the city without a map, and didn't get lost.  I ate alone in restaurants, I went to the theatre by myself.   I shopped.  I rode the subway.  I walked in the rain without an umbrella.  I did all of this on my own, yet I wasn't lonely.    I was in my city--London.   I felt so at ease over those four days.  I was my own person.  Not someone's wife, not someone's mother.  Not a daughter, not a sister, not a nurse.  Just...myself.  So how can I come home and be the same person I was before I left?

I have struggled with that question everyday since I returned.  The minute I got off the plane, I was thrust right back into all those roles.  I had responsibilities, a job, chores that I had to attend to.   I was no longer my own person, but the person that had to be there for others.  I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, sister, nurse.  There's no way around that life.  I spend a great deal of time meeting the needs of others--it is an inherent part of the role I play.  Caretaker, problem solver, healer.  I love that part of my life, but that's the point.  It's only a "part" of my life.  But what about the other part?  The part that loves culture and books,  and British television and sci-fi, and fine art and the ballet.   How do I feed that part of my soul?  It's not as easy as it probably should be.

1 comment:

  1. This is why I struggle with going on vacation or any other sort of brief escape from drudgery (even something like getting a massage for an hour)...the whole time I'm doing it I am thinking about everything I'll have to do to make up for the time off when I get back and it makes it that much worse to come back to than it was if I'd never taken the break at all.

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