The Brass Ring

Do you remember the days of the marry-go-rounds with the brass rings? You know, if you catch it you get a free ride. A summer amusement park I went to growing up had one of those. Seems you seldom saw the brass ring but that never stopped you from trying for it.

Tonight has turned into one of those nights where I just can't shut my head off. After I had my little blood clot incident, my family doctor gave me some meds to help me sleep and that has been pretty much doing the trick. Only problem with that is I really don't like not having my wits about me....as it may go anyways.

So my dilemma today - a little bit of everything. I took the day off of work, mostly because I have to work the rest of the weekend so I really wanted a little down time. Other part of it was to catch up on some personal needs that seem to fall to the bottom of the priority list with being a single working mom, hell bent to support her cancer cause and be a real friend to the people in my life.

As it turned out, Aspen was not feeling well at all today and stayed home so I did absolutely nothing and slept most of the day just snuggling her and tending to her needs. I guess it was exactly what I needed to do. Which brings me to the point of my writing today...what is that keeps us driving forward and will I ever be completely happy?

I see some people who are just content....they get to some place in their life and they say, "yeah I like it here" I get a little jealous of them sometimes. Why am I not wired like that?

Of all of the opportunities I have had in my life to let someone take care of me, or to settle for the safe road, why does that never seem to interest me? As if I always keep the target just so far from my own reach. Here I am on a Friday night, at 1am, Aspen playing the piano (unfortunately I think she is wired the same way as me) and Autumn going through her closet looking for the perfect something that undoubtedly we will only be able to find at the Eden Prairie mall tomorrow :)

I got a message from someone today from my past. It completely came out of the blue and I wasn't quite sure how to react to it. A bittersweet feeling came over me. Without going into too many details, I will say that it ended badly 10 years ago and left several causalities in it's aftermath both for both of us. So the rational me said, well here you go, this is a chance to make amends for the deeds of the past. Time heals all wounds, right? So I played out a number of scenarios in my head. Beyond the obvious I asked myself what did I learn from that experience that I don't want to repeat.

Here is the kicker, I don't think I've learned anything. Taking assessment of where I am today and the actions that lead me to the bad ending of that friendship I think I'm doing it again just a different stage and a few different actors. I have been so wrapped up in the momentary highs of being with someone who adores me, having my daughters turn into young women over night and the adrenaline of non-stop work that I have not been looking ahead at where is all of this going.

So I'm sitting her tonight asking myself that question. What REALLY, is next? I'm hoping there are others out there who suffer from the same affliction of never completeness and can temporarily comfort me by saying, I'm not alone and it will be ok. It's days like today I think I must be so caught up in just playing the game that I don't give thought to why am I even playing?
It's like that merry-go-round ride. Without having the ring to grab each time I went round, I don't think I would have taken the ride... I never thought it was all that much fun really. Somehow though, I sold myself on the idea that it would be so great to win a free ride, and I would be getting something I don't have today. After each ride was over I would just do it again.

Would I have had my fill if the ring I had grabbed was the brass one? Or would I have just convinced myself I needed to do it again? Maybe I'm still reaching for it.