The missing one...

Maybe I'm not being very smart here. Honestly, I'm coming to a conclusion that something is missing based on a skimming of my list of commandments - by no means a real search for what I was looking for.

Anyways, here's some background for you, dear reader. My wonderful roommate and I are TV watchers. Right now we're rewatching a series that we both loved as teenagers, Everwood. It's a total teenager show and probably not quite of the quality of some of the shows that I'd very happily tell you that we watch, but still. One of our old favourites. Anyways, the kids are in college now and Amy, one of the main characters, has this amazing Women's Studies professor who is her mentor. And I am so very jealous. I actually had the exact same professor, but I took the class too late. Joe was my WMST 201 professor in my very last semester at school. My Lori wasn't my mentor by any means, but she opened my eyes to so many things that I had no idea existed. And those ideas stuck. I wasn't much of a feminist, not an environmentalist at all and I had no interest in anything but getting out of school, making a pile of money and doing all the other "American Dream"-y stuff. But Joe (and another amazing professor that I got so much from) changed my life so that I didn't want any of that stuff. Or at least not as "the" official goal, you know? And so I had all these ideas and new thoughts and causes and interests and all that stuff. Anyways, we're just watching and I am so jealous of Amy. She has all the chances to make something of those ideas, like so many of us choose not to once we leave.

Now, not that working for an environmental non-profit is necessarily so off base, but it just doesn't feel right right now. I feel like I've missed the point a little, got caught a bit in the regular stuff. I guess living to work more than working to live. I just don't feel like I'm making any sort of difference. And I'm not posting this online so that people will comment and say "oh yes you are so making a difference", that's not what I'm after. I was hoping to find something in those 613 commandments that makes me figure out how to fix this. And not that I'm so hard done by, I realize that having a roof over my head, a job to go to, food in my refrigerator and the damn luxury to sit around and wonder how self-actualized I am or am not makes me a very lucky person. I guess that I've thought that after I get home from work I can have a whole second life where I do the things I want to. I write and I help repair the world or my little part of it. But I've gotten stuck in other things like laundry and sitting around and watching TV and doing stuff that is selfish and regular. My suburban bubble keeps me safe and warm and feeling content, which is fine and I'm not sure I would change it, but it's just a restless feeling, especially when I see people doing what I want to be doing. But I don't even know what that is.

So I don't know. The other piece of background is that my Christian phase left me with the idea that the bible has the answers; it's your instruction booklet to life. And I don't believe that at this point in my life, but I guess that I thought that one of those 613 guidelines could give me some ancient inspiration about what to do with myself, with my time, with my life. And I was a little disappointed that I didn't find it. And like I said, I didn't look that hard. I guess that being a Gen Y-er and wanting to have everything the second I look for it is a little naive and self-indulgent, but I've been thinking the last couple of days that writing a post where I can unpack what that nugget of wisdom says and how it applies to my life. But I couldn't find it. And so I guess I'll have to find the answer for myself.

All that said, though, here's where I can maybe bring it back to this poorly updated blog. I guess that one of the biggest things (of the very, very few) that I know of Judaism is the whole tikkun olam idea. Or at least it's the one that I cling to as it's something that I can semi-understand and that I feel like I identify with a little bit. And the idea that I could have the capacity to repair the world makes me think that maybe I can figure it out for myself.

Maybe the answer is to just do it. But I just want to do lots of things, I think. Too many things.

Sorry folks. This post is probably more boring to read than it is frustrating to write. Just thought I'd share my frustration. I just feel like I can't finish anything and I don't have the motivation to try. Sorry to be that girl right now.