Recently I've been missing the freedom of being a teenager. I miss those days of youthful dreaming, the creativity that came with being a teenager, feeling like I had the whole world in front of me and limitless options. Back then I wanted so many things and knew that I had my whole life to obtain these things and fulfill my dreams. I was absolutely convinced that I would be able to have it all and wouldn't have to compromise to get it. I wanted to be a college graduate, own my own store, create jewelry and various other accessories and clothes, backpack all over the world, find true love, have a family and a career, and always--always--be a writer.
All through high school I wanted to take creative writing but never was able to until I moved to Missouri as a senior. I loved that class so much but then I started working and had less time and became this weird kind of rebel. I had always fancied myself a bit of a rebel but never trendy. Senior year of high school I was so lonely and desperate for a close friend and I became trendy. And it was one of the worst periods in my life because I was not true to myself. Anyway, I no longer had the time, or even bothered to make to it, to write. I wrote for class but it became half-assed and forgettable. And so that was the end of my short story writing. I continued to write poetry until college when suddenly I decided that it was all the same, just worded slightly differently, and therefore stopped writing that. Every now and then something would strike me and I would jot down and new poem but for the most part, I just stopped writing creatively.
Recently my mother participated in a creativity retreat, part of which included creative writing. She has since been part of an online creative writing community that has a weekly inspiration such as writing a short story using a certain title, creating a story for an image, or writing a couple of paragraphs regarding a certain item. When she was out here visiting when my son was born, she kept writing and let me read some of her pieces. I became addicted, loving the stories her imagination came up with and asked her to keep sending them to me to read after she went home. Something about this triggered my thought-to-be-dead-but-was-really-only-dormant desire to write short stories again. I asked her to forward the topics to me so that I could use them as inspiration to get my creative juices flowing again and get me to start writing again. I told her I only wanted to do it for myself and hoped it wouldn't be an imposition on her and that she wouldn't think I was trying to take something she was doing for herself away from her but she, being the wonderful, thoughtful person she is, instantly said she thought I should join the group and not just keep it all to myself. It's only $10 a month so maybe I will but at the same time, I don't want to feel like I'm wasting anyone's time or my money if I just don't have the time to write because I have an infant in the house. We'll see how this plays out but in the mean time, I'm enjoying my rediscovered love for writing and only need to push myself to do it and not be afraid of failing in some way.
As for my crafts, I have always done something crafty. I think I took a year break away from crafting my first year of college but then I, of course, missed it and ended up finding a thing to do. I was an avid hemp jewelry maker in high school and sort of fell out of love with it because I just stopped wearing that kind of jewelry. I did several creative crafty things here and there, just because it's in my nature, but nothing continuous. The summer after my first year of college I decided that I finally wanted to learn how to knit, something I had wanted to do for years so I bought myself
Stitch 'N Bitch and took on teaching myself. I have been knitting ever since and even took on teaching myself
how to crochet. As I've gotten older and more comfortable in my nerdy, retro craftiness, I have embraced my desire to learn other seemingly outdated crafts such as sewing. I have wanted to learn how to sew since elementary school but for whatever reason I just never did. I have a sewing machine that my loving husband and mother-in-law bought me for my birthday one year but have used the excuse of not having room to use it to keep myself from learning how to use it. To be fair, I really haven't had anywhere to use it since I was given it but I haven't really tried making the room either. I want to learn so bad now though that I have plans to do it, I just need to have the money and be able to have someone watch my little man for me while I go out and take the class at Jo-Anns. It's a far enough drive away that a 2 hour class is pushing the bounds of how long I can be away from him.
And everything else...well, it turned out I couldn't have everything the way I planned and I did have to compromise. One of my biggest regrets in life is not backpacking around the world while I had the chance. I wanted college so much that I made that a priority in my early 20s and just never had the money to travel as much as I wanted to. My husband loves traveling as much as I do but it just doesn't seem to be as much as a priority to him as it is to me. I am willing to cut out certain daily luxuries to save the money to travel more frequently but he's not. He's also too responsible to see taking more than a week off work for traveling as worth it. He seems to think it looks bad by employers or that we just can't afford it. He also doesn't see alternative options like staying at hostels and doing it on the cheap. He wants to be able to stay at the nice, comfortable hotels, which I also love but don't need. I want to experience the culture and do as much as possible. He wants to do experience some but do less and be able to relax on the beach or by the pool or something along those lines. He's much more of a tropical beach traveler than I am. I love the beach too but I turn into a lobster so easily that I spend most of my time worrying about whether I have enough sunscreen on and whether I've been in the sun long enough. I really enjoy visiting cities and historical sites where I can do the museums and take informational tours. I also love just getting out and walking, seeing what daily life is like there and trying new things. I'm rambling and this post has gotten so long now. I vowed to live my life with no regrets and it seems like I've only half succeeded in this. Am I the only who feels this way? If anyone has gotten through this post, please comment and let me know if you feel the same way or if you don't, how you have managed to live the life you've dreamed of while still taking family and/or spouses into account.
