Thinning of the Branches

It's easy for me to say to myself, "Well, years from now, this won't matter" or something to that effect.

It's important to focus on the future and think about what will be best for the three of us in our life after graduate school, our life after Ohio, or wherever we end up next. But it also is important for me to stop, take a breath, and look at my son in the eyes before I finish cooking dinner for that night. I know that I want to have a good job, but also, I don't want to wake up in 10 years and realize that I completely ignored my son because I was too preoccupied with future plans.

Sometimes I feel guilty for just stopping and getting sidetracked to put up a posting like this. Why? I suppose because I think i should be doing something else. Sometimes it is good for me to just buckle down and work... but sometimes distractions are nice, too. It's true that years from now it won't matter how tough our lives are now, because the hard work will have paid off (hopefully). But isn't it also true that the hard work won't matter if we don't stop to take a few moments of pause to revel, play, blow off steam, and be silly?

Sometimes I feel that the longer I am alive, the more interests I pick up. Realistically speaking, I can't pursue everything. It's like being a tree with too many branches. I simply can't sustain them all.

At the end of our lives, maybe neither really matters: whether we were silly or whether we were studious. We can't take any of our achievements, possessions, or memories with us. All we can really do is live a life that is  full, enjoyable, thoughtful, honest, and peaceful. I know that graduate school will not be my life forever, so I don't want to base my entire future on it. But also, finding a job and working at a job will not be my entire life, and it's quite likely that I will look back one day and think, "It sure was nice to read a hundred pages each week on theoretical ideas and 20th century Japanese art history." Hard to imagine now, but then again, sometimes I miss being cooped up for hours at a smelly, stuffy print shop. At the time, though--ai yaaaa-- it felt like i was being tortured! 

So yes, even though I feel pulled every which way, I truthfully enjoy most of it. The trick for me is to remember to take a breath and face each thing fully, exist in that moment, and allow myself to make mistakes. I can no longer be the perfectionist that I used to be, and I have to start shutting down distractions. Let's say that I'm a tree, and at this point I need to start cutting off branches to let them grow a bit thicker and stronger. I do believe that getting older has made me a more patient, joyful, and resilient person. Those branches are blooming. So now, it's time to curb my distractions and prune a bit. Time to let that fruit grow~!!