A friend sent me this quote today, tucked amid some thought-provoking observations about my last few blog posts: “Hell is wanting to be somewhere different from where you are.” I sat with those words all day and let her comments sink in; my discomfort with here, my desire to be somewhere else, my lack of definition for whatever and wherever “there” is. The thought process turned my mind to mush.
I have always been a lover of my “here” – my home, my family, my happy place. The cognitive dissonance that’s created when I try to understand how I could love and hate my life so much can be debilitating. It’s clearly the source of my current hell and why I’ve resisted the “three good things” ritual for so long.
I am grateful. I swear I am. I just know I don’t want to be here anymore.
I think of all the theres I’ve traveled toward in my life. The careers I felt called to. The home and family I cultivated and cared for. The marriage I invested in, doubled down on, and believed would always be here. Now, as I compare my hell/here with the unknown/there, I wonder if I’m setting myself up for a Gertrude Stein moment – traveling to the place I long to see, only to discover there’s no there there?
Deep down I fear the here I’m trying to escape and the there I’m romanticizing are sitting side-by-side within me and this entire journey has been nothing but a yellow brick road. My hell is my own making and it’s time for this maker to make something of it.
Keep going! You’re almost there! How I you get the “look” with your words? It’s a different perspective of your current home. Ahhhh! What does that say?
Your last sentence is a combination of truth and untruth, with the untruth being the first half of that sentence. You didn’t create that hell all on your own. And yes, Maker, you can go for making something else, something better–far better. You have what’s needed within you and around you.
Bingo! Keep going!