Tilting At Personal Windmills

You ever feel like the universe is trying to tell you something?

This evening, we watched Julie & Julia.  Again.

There is something satisfying about watching a movie about a cooking icon and a woman trying to find herself while eating a Cobb salad I'd thrown together with some leftover Greek lemon chicken with some tomatoes I'd grown in the garden outside.

Did I mention we had it with a nicely chilled rose?  And some perfectly ripened avocado which was so buttery rich it melted in my mouth each and every bite.

Yum.

Mr. ReddHedd had a very long day, so I'd held off making dinner and watched another movie -- Under the Tuscan Sun -- while waiting for him to come home.

And then I realized that I've been picking out movies lately that have a sort of "finding myself" theme to them.  Because, frankly, I've been sort of stagnant for a few months, which isn't like me as a rule.

I'm clearly not satisfied with that as a way of existing.
When I was practicing law, there was very little time to think about what I really wanted to be doing next because there was always another deadline, and another, and another, and another.  Until I finally got pregnant, but then had to go on bed rest where there were no real work deadlines, but there was a lot of fear and frantic thinking about what I didn't want to happen.

So I read a lot of Dickens to keep my mind of things.  Which mostly worked.  Mostly.

Once The Peanut was born, it became my entire world for a while to make certain she was okay -- she had some health issues early on and that was pretty much all consuming considering what we went through with 6 and a half years of fertility hell just to get her.

I sort of stumbled into political work in the interim as a way of keeping my intellect sharp while staying home with our baby girl.  (Lord love the people who make Sesame Street, but you can only sing "C Is For Cookie" so many times before you need something else on the side to think about, you know?)

The fact that the political sideline business then took over my life for five years was really unexpected.  It was a blessing, but it wasn't something I'd planned for either.

And then I wasn't doing politics because I needed a break from the insanity that it had become for me.  Who knew I'd be on conference calls with people at the White House and on the Hill while throwing food in a crockpot in my kitchen before I headed out to school pick-up?  Or that The Peanut would occasionally pick up the extension and ask me for milk while I was on said conference calls, something political leaders found amusing, if not ever-so-slightly odd from a woman who had been lambasting them for failing to follow the letter of the law only moments beforehand?

But I digress...because since I stopped political blogging and policy wonking, I honestly cannot say that I miss the craziness that is American politics at the moment.

What I do miss, though?  Feeling like I have a purpose.  Like I'm waking up every day, suiting up and fighting a battle that matters to me, writing something that might just change someone's life for the better...doing something that has a broader purpose and has real meaning for me.

Don't get me wrong:  taking care of my family, making certain my child is fed and cared for and loved and played with and generally having as wonderful a life as we can give her?  Immensely satisfying.

Loving my husband and feeding him a wonderful meal and making certain he has an ear when he needs one and some fun around the edges, too?  Love it.

But it isn't enough.  Not at the moment, anyway.

I think I'm done coasting.  I'm tired of sitting on the sidelines in my own life.  But the weird thing is, I have no fricking clue what that means in terms of what it is that I want to be doing to make that difference, to push forward to the next personal adventure, to scale that next hill and conquer whatever lies on the other side.

No clue.

The thing I learned from watching Julie and Julia today, though?  Julia Child didn't even begin to become JULIA CHILD (in all caps because, frankly, she was pretty larger than life there after her cookbook hit the stands, wasn't she?) until her mid-40s, if then.  So I figure I have some time to figure out who I want to be next when I grow up.

The Peanut is at grandma's house for a few days, so I'll have a little space to do some serious thinking.  Or at least give myself a little nudge in that direction.  What I'd love is to get some writing done on the novel idea I've been working on, but I'm fighting myself on that front lately which is frustrating as hell.

No idea who may be out there reading this, or who even cares other than me.  But I just wanted to say that whatever tilting at personal windmills I've been doing of late?  It's time to stop tilting and start kicking some ass again in some new and invigorating direction.  Sometimes you just get that feeling that something big is building up, you know?

I'll let you know when I decide what that is going to be...


(Picture via Zyllan.  Love this one.)