Oh

My life isn't turning out the way I expected it would. I thought my children would look more human than this, for example:


Left to right: Feathers McGraw, Ernest, Piggly and Horace (atop the monitor).

Every so often I start to despair and carry on, thinking I should be this, I should be that, everything should be different and I've got no alternative except to feel ashamed. There are things I should change, and there's a lot I am ashamed about. Most of it, frankly. I'm never going to win a "Time Well Spent" competition, put it that way.

But. There isn't any such competition, is there? There aren't any hard and fast rules about how we should live, except the ones we sign up to ourselves. The trickiest part about the whole thing is realising this, and then deciding for yourself what's important. And then doing it.

I'm not doing it well. I'm not doing the doing part properly. I'm spending a whole lot of time in the not-doing department.

But now, for the last five minutes at least, instead of agonising about doing it all wrong, now I'm thinking "This is what it's about". This. Whatever I'm doing or not doing, here and now. I'm not on the way to my real life, I'm in it.

Bloody hell.

(I probably shouldn't be laughing.)

UPDATE

Sorry, Reader. I didn't put this very well the first time, and I want to have another go.

What I meant was, it's okay that my life isn't turning out the way I expected. I thought I was doing it all wrong and getting nowhere (and from a normal worldly perspective that's true) but then I realised it doesn't particularly matter. Maybe whatever I'm doing now is what I'm supposed to be doing (even though it doesn't seem to fit any plan which would be drawn up by someone with a brain, say...).

And I bet I still haven't put that properly. By "what I'm supposed to be doing", I don't mean there's a script to follow or a role to fill, I just mean that whatever is in my life now is the real thing. I've been thinking all along that somehow I got off the track and need to find it again in order to live as I should, but now I think maybe there is no should; there is no right track. The track I'm on is the right one, just because I'm on it. This is where I am. And where I am is where I'm supposed to be. And that makes me laugh, because to anybody else, and to most of my own brain, I look like a big failure who's going nowhere. All the "shoulds" tell me I shouldn't be laughing, but I'm laughing anyway because I don't have to listen to them.

Does this make sense now? I'm sorry the first attempt was so scrambled and led you to think something I didn't intend. What the hell, though, eh? It happens.

And can I say I'm TERRIBLY offended no one has complimented my children. Those boys are cute, damn you! How come you haven't noticed?
:)