menu »
war »
rings »
/journal
scattiness abounds
posted 27 February 07 & filed under kittens
i’ve been all over the place lately – and i don’t mean traveling so much as moods and interests. it’s always been a wide spectrum, but this past twelve months has seen an all-time record high. i’m not going to write about the moods right now.. they’re not interesting to probably anyone besides me, and they even bore me a lot of the time! ;) besides, it’s my birthday in five days, i’ll be 30!, and i don’t want to look back and think “oh i was going through one of those freaking-out-i’m thirty phases, that’s what that was.” i’m not sure what this is that i’m going through, but i’m hoping for some originality at least. and i’m pretty sure it’s not connected to fear of mortality or wrinkles or that kind of stuff. 
interests though! well. they’re off the chart random. like beekeeping.
and letterpress. i usually love that randomness, but it’s been worrying me a bit lately.
my mom is an artist and i remember her telling me about a criticism another artist made of her work a while back, saying that my mom needed to stick to just one medium and really delve into it, rather than trying out new ones all the time. 
that idea stuck with me – particularly the small-mindedness of it, as i saw it at least. for years now, i’ve thought and said, there’s too much in the world that’s interesting and that i want to learn – why limit myself? there’s some people who want to concentrate on one main thing in their lives, one passion – i say go for it. but i think there’s a lot of other people who are too curious to concentrate like that. being in my twenties, it felt all the more true. i’d think, well if i’m closing myself off now to hunker down and concentrate on one interest, what will i be like when i’m forty? or sixty?
now though.. well recently, i’ve been worrying sometimes that this is just an excuse for flighty ones like me to not get serious about 
anything, to not have real understanding and/or opinions about anything (“i don’t know – i’m a beginner..”) i can mostly dismiss this idea, but sometimes i can’t. it’s somewhat cute to be all random-tangents when you’re twenty, but when you’re thirty and forty and fifty.. well, then it’s a little.. what, sad? right?
i embraced the scattiness of my personality a long time ago – and i love it even!, but i guess the real question here is, with there being only a finite amount of time and energy in a person’s life, is it better to get serious at some point about a particular interest? how does one choose that? how did you? can you force yourself? do you even want to do that? or is society, and that critic, wrong?
..ah, it just feels wrong. 
maybe i have committment issues. ha! am i just the happy-go-lucky girl who doesn’t want to stop flirting with the town hunks, so to speak, and settle down to raise kids with a respectable boy? .. this whole post may seem silly, and definitely a bit loosey-goosey writing-wise, but i really want to know what you think.
oh, here’s some pics of my bedroom to hopefully keep you from keeling over with boredom at my navel-gazing. i’m off with trouble to the vet to make sure her peeing ways don’t mean an infection. hope your tuesday has been fulfilling ~ ~
Comments
the pillow came out so nice – well done on your first quilting job! i like the way your room’s looking too… defintily more “you”. i hope trouble’s bladder is all good. she looks so sweet in the last picture. i’ll be home soon for a visit so i’ll see it all first hand. ;)
mua!
~ Luci
I have to say, I am the same way. I have a million interests and I want to do them all. I sometimes ask myself the same thing, should i just stick with one thing? nah. Life’s too short. :)
~ moni
I love that this post is filed solely under “kittens” – it makes me laugh.
I think you are having this particular existential crisis because you are at the threshold of starting some sort of “career” and just moved from a place that you loved and thought of as home. I’ve gone throught the same thing and will no doubt go through it again.
My answer has been balance. And by that I mean that I choose a few things that I am truly committed to – Moxie, knitting, the animals -and make sure that I treat those areas of my life in a committed way. The rest is dealer’s choice, and there’s a different dealer almost every day. I find that life is too short to be limited, and it is nice to be able to follow my whims and interests. That is part of being creative. I see you as a very balanced person in a lot of ways, and I think that as you settle into your new life, wherever that will be, your areas of commitment will make themselves clear. Miss you!!!
~ Julia
there are people who want wide lives, ones who want deep lives, and still others who want a mixture. i don’t know you can compare them. there is value in tasting the breadth of life—having played with bees, made paper, kissed kitties, baked cakes, traveled—as well as knowing the intricacies of one subject.
i think it mostly depends on what you want out of life. what’s the harm in pursuing varied interests if it’s what you love? do you feel it has held you back from something you meant to accomplish? what would you hope to get out of restricting yourself to one thing?
i think Julia is right… there are many transitions and uncertainties for you right now (not to mention less control over your lifestyle than you are used to). and turning 30 is yet another beginning/ending to the big pile of flux on your plate. there can be wisdom to some transitional freakouts. we have expectations about what it means to be 30, so we ask questions of where we are and where we want to be. it’s good to think and fear if it gets us closer to living the way we mean to.
ok, i’ve rudely written way too much here, but it was my turn to boss you. :) Trouble’s little nose looks ready for a scritch. hope she is ok.
~ meowgirl
Why can’t each day open a new adventure? To much rigidness only leads to boredom and anxiety. You have to love what you are doing to find true happiness.
The problem, I’ve found, with just picking one thing, is that after investing a lot of time and energy in the thing, you may find that you really don’t enjoy being that involved in it and that you miss all those different things that you were dabbling in. Maybe you’re just on your path to finding something that you do want to really focus on but you need to dabble until you find it…
If it makes you feel any better, I think scattiness accompanies turning 30. I went through a similar phase when I was that age, and am already preparing myself for a similar stint in 3 years when I turn…(ahem) that next decade milestone. As for the creativity thing, it’s still a struggle for me, between my creative side and my “need to pay the bills” side – I hope to merge the two someday, but until then, I cherish my creative outlets and just try to live as authentic a life as possible, with as much balance as possible. Not sure if this helps, but hope so, if even just a little. :)
~ Nonnahs