Doubt

One isn't thinking about things completely if one doesn't doubt their decisions every now and again. I'm trying to figure out the logistics of moving my family half way across the country, and I am filled with doubt. Mike will find out on the 25th whether or not he got into art school. If he was, I wouldn't wonder if I'm dragging my family on some kind of insane adventure. That I'm holding them hostage over my inability to sit still.

If I don't feel like life is progressing, I feel trapped and bored. This can be a good thing, however things can't always be progressing. Sometimes they need to stagnate to develop into what you want. Stagnation, waiting, can be a comfortable thing. Not that I know this for sure, since I've never waited for anything in my life. Mostly, I start to sense that things are very much the same that they were the year before, and that the year ahead will follow in the same suit, and I start planning. I start googling trips to Peru, and careers that fit my interests. I look at house prices in French Polynesia. I find worldwide climate change meetings and guerilla roving anarchist collectives. I investigate religions who reside in abandoned French monasteries. I dream. I rant at my husband. He smiles, and nods, and tells me he'll follow me anywhere. I am lucky.

Then, when we do decide to go on one of these adventures that I have planned, I panic. What will school be like, with such a young child? Should we sell the house, or rent it out? How much will I learn in this program, and how much should I know going in? My feckless belief in adolescence that I was capable of anything has been replaced by a certainty that everything is more complicated than it seems.

But there's no going back, and there's no regrets. Only doubt.