Sewing all day at Terri’s.  Katie stopped in for a chat and brought us cookies.  Katie is wonderful, within minutes we are talking real life, about goals, about possibilities.  Suddenly she confesses that she has been struggling with the realization that she will not climb Mt. Kilimanjaro (and says as an aside “not that I ever wanted to”) or sail a boat around the world (same aside follows), but it’s the realization that there’s not enough time in a lifetime to do everything one could do in a lifetime.  I realize this is part of what gets me into a funk.  I have so many goals, so many dreams, so little time.  Add to that the complete disillusionment with my “day job” and no wonder I am feeling hopeless.  

Terri and I sewed for 8 hours, with occasional breaks to watch Hulu videos of the Glee cast singing classic tunes, some of which bring us to tears they are so beautifully rendered at the hands of the young and extremely talented cast.  Nearing the end of the evening,  still at my machine, I find myself saying something that, if I can just keep it front and center, can whisk away depression with one pass of the broom.   I have no goals, except that some child will be thrilled with the Halloween placemat I have created, or perhaps a little two year old will be tantalized by the feel of the flocked bats on the shiny material; I have no goals but that perhaps a young person will find guidance in my attempts in my writing to describe the payoffs of the work of marriage; I have no goal but that my smile and kindness and love will comfort patient who is despondent at the realization that he cannot return to his home again. 

Katie said she was talking to one of her sons (she’s crazier than I, three sons wasn’t enough, she went ahead and had a fourth) about what she should do with her life and he said “why don’t you just live it and enjoy it?”  We all had a good laugh about that and agreed that it sounded like a plan.   Maybe we don’t have to have a goal, maybe we don’t have to “make it” – maybe we just need to be.

I gotta tell ya, sometimes it just sucks to be the philosophical type!