Where do I belong and is the treadmill set too fast?

 

Nowadays, as the world seems to be turning upside down, more than ever, I wonder where I belong. Born in one country, a child in another, an adolescent in yet a new place and an adult again, elsewhere.

I now have a husband, children and a job. My friends and family live and come from all works of life, all religions, all ethnicities. I can Skype, FaceTime, FaceBook and yet I feel alone much of the time.

From an early age I have envied those brought up in a tiny village, with generations of family before them, ahead of them and around them. Perhaps, in reality , as I look at that life as paradise, they look longingly  to the outside and want to escape their bubble. Who has the better world?

Previously I welcomed many into my life, but lately I am closed to this sharing. The new people I meet experience a wall; a dense, hard, impenetrable wall. Is this a normal part of growing up, of the pressures of work, family  and life? I can’t say I like it. I preferred who I was before.

My disabled child opened up a new world, I met other parents and did charity work, but now, I find I have shut the door on this too as he ages and worsens. Or perhaps support just naturally falls away when no improvement is seen and the ‘project’ becomes never ending .

There is that old story about putting the carrot, the egg and the coffee bean in boiling water. The hard carrot softens, the fragile egg, becomes hard and brittle, but the coffee bean changes the water. Yes, yes, yes, I desperately want to be that coffee bean, but each day I become harder and more brittle, in grave danger of shattering.

Perhaps like my insane Dalmatian pictured above, I should just put my ears back and run, run into the unknown and just experience undiluted joy. To her, home is where her family who love and feed her reside, a simple solution to the problem.

That’s the trouble with humans, sometimes we just overthink life. Perhaps all we need is quiet time, a time to meditate, or pray, be peaceful, to listen to birdsong, to feel joy, to be present here and now, just like my Dalmatian.