Leisure Blues

It's been a great Christmas so far, and there is still almost a complete week of holiday to go. Unlike last year, when it was all still too new, I've relaxed and been fairly stress-free about the whole thing.

With the exception of yesterday, when the blues struck at random, as they do sometimes for me.

The thing is that I still miss my family a lot, and I still feel a kind of guilt that I walked out on them. I know I'm not at fault for the doctrine that says that once I'm not in the circle any more they must cut me off, but still I feel deep down as though it was me who initiated the break. And when I did so, it was justified in my mind by all the great things I'd be able to do with my new freedom. And every now and then it hits me that I haven't done those things, and I suddenly feel like I can't justify the hurt of leaving my family.

Life is full, and life is good, no doubt about it. But days, weeks, months go by, and no doubt years will too, and I won't have written a novel, painted the pictures that are in my head, started working full-time at something that fulfils me, travelled the world ... etc etc. And in my rational mind, I know it's unreasonable to expect much of that to happen, if anything. Life is busy enough just living from day to day. That's the crux, really - as long as life is busy, it doesn't worry me. But a few idle days, and the guilt begins to set in: I'm not accomplishing enough, I'm not justifying my freedom. The mental list of things I haven't achieved starts growing in my mind.

In a way, being in the brethren is mentally liberating just because things are decided for you. You may dream of writing and releasing a hit song, for instance, but you are relieved of any need to obsess over it because you know it can't happen - brethren don't do such things and won't allow it to happen. It can remain safely as a dream, with a dream's rosy glow and none of the harsh spikes of reality.

Once out of the brethren, in my case at least, the excuses feel stripped away, and it's my fault alone that I am not doing what I dreamed of before.

Rationally, I should just sit down, look at my list of wishes, and do some addition. Once it is obvious that doing everything would require two lifetimes of thirty-eight hour days, I could cross items off the list and accept that they are never going to happen. This, I am told, is part of growing up. Still, murdering dreams is a harsher action than neglecting them, which I can pretend isn't happening, and so it's a tough thing to do. Until then, I guess I can expect to get very sad every so often.