So tired that I know I shouldn't be writing. Exhaustion is the worst time to write and yet seems to be the time when I am drawn the most to writing. Sometimes the element of emotional and physical exhaustion lends itself to creating a place of just being raw and open, walls going down, flood doors opening. Other times it lends itself to writing a jargled jumbled mess that makes no sense at all. Usually I don't read my stuff later so it doesn't matter but sometimes i go back. Its then that I see the times I write that are spurred by different emotions, highs and lows, hopes and fears. It affects the way I write. The way I think. The basic simple facts I believe in or don't. Maybe thats why my life is rocky and rolling . . . maybe there is no solid ground. Maybe there never will be.

When I look at my future, in ten years, I see a blank page. I don't know how to fill it in, what to write, what colors to choose. I don't see a theme or a canvas. its just blank. At some times I believe that in ten years I will be married, the kids mostly out of the house, I will be traveling and secure in my career. I will cook for lots of people and play with grandkids as much as possible. Life will be about having fun and relaxing.

Other times I can't imagine that. I wonder what the point is. I am terrified of complacency and settling into a mundane middle class existence. I want to join the peace corp and travel teh world or adopt five kids and build a life for them. I want to do the extraordinary, not sit in a mundane lifestyle and watch the years pass by. I've no fear of death but a huge fear of not living life to its fullest. I don't want to be rich or famous, I don't want to drive a new car or outfit my family in the latest brand names. I just want to life fully.

Every day I wake up and think about how amazing this life is. Maybe you have to go through an experience where your basic fundamentals are stripped from you before you can truly recognize how amazing it is to simply go for a walk, take a drive or plan a vacation. I even still get emotional when I make a phone call at times, remembering the years I wasn't allowed. Watching television still feels like I am going to get in trouble . . . I wait for my husband to come around the corner and catch me. Lying in a bubble bath with a book is exhilerating and at the same time I'm so aware that I would have caught hell for weeks just a few years ago.

Looking into my future, I never really saw myself with anybody again. I can't imagine shifting my life to include somebody who would once again have a say over where I go and what I do with my time. How would I let somebody in who could bar me from a weekend trip or limit my choices and freedom. I logically can understand that I only will find this relationship if I let myself and that there are many many men out there who aren't this way. How do you ever know though? really know?

And under all of that . . . how do you know your strong enough to move on? strong enough to be a true partner to another and yet to hold your own space and boundaries, your own beliefs and ideals without becoming homogonized to the other person? Where do you allow the lines to blur and yet know when to hold steadfast to yourself? I haven't had a relationship like that . . . I realize that i want that . . . and that I'm woefully unprepared ot know how to proceed. I find myself being pulled back into patterns of the past, thinking I should settle for the 'safe' man . . . the one who won't rock the boat, who . . . while kind and gentle is also not the one I am pulled to. The one I am pulled to is like fire . . . and I'm a moth drawn to the flame . . . dancing so close I am bound to be burned but so delighted in the lick of flames I care not. And then . . . when all is quiet, I think about it, logic sets in and I began logically explaining to myself why the other is safer. Its not a fire . . . its more like a warm blanket that just cloaks you . . . its comfortable, its easy, it asks for nothing and requires nothing. There is companionship and maybe even chemistry but it pales in the light of the other.

My old habit has always been to shy away from what I really want to seek out what is safe. My history shows that this has never been safe nor has it ever worked for me. Do I dance in the flame . . . do I throw aside old habits and dive in head first, letting all caution to the wind . . . asking for nothing in return and knowing that I may have to pick myself up from the ashes when I am done? OR . . . do I keep it as a special memory and go back to the safe place, the warm arms, the quietness, the dark eyes. Do I dip back to the one who silently has the world to offer? I don't know . . . do I want that world? I don't think so . . .

Maybe I am answering my own questions . . . I began this talking about not wanting to live a mundane existance but to push the boundaries of life. I want the passion, the spark, the backbending toe curling arching hanging on for dear life passion. That doesn't come often. That passion becomes passion for all things in life . . . arts, career, friendship, life . . . but that passion can cost one hell of a price. It can cost me everything. I don't know . . .