down from the mountaintop

Well I hope you all read my mom's comment on my last post. I loved it because it was the most quintessentially mom thing to do - post on your daugher's blog telling everyone how great she is, while injecting a hearty dose of hard-knock-life reality. Time to come down off the mountaintop, eh? Yeah. I guess that's exactly what I'm hoping never to do. And hearing my mom say that it's time to do that makes me want to not do it even more!

Let me explain, lest you misunderstand my comment for simple, adolescent, blind rebellion. I love my mother. And I know she loves me. And I am not in any way offended by her friendly suggestion that it's time for me to get back to "real life." Nor was I offended by my ex-husband's resistance to travel, saying that it was too costly and impractical for us. Nor have I been offended by the many people who have told me that anything I wanted to do was unrealistic, or when they told me I should just think things through a bit more. Admittedly, I have a tendancy towards hasty, emotional decisions. I often just feel my way through life, using my gut as a sort of "divining stick," and ignoring my other senses all together - especially my common one. So I would certainly understand why the people who love me the most would be concerned about my ability to make healthy decisions.

BUT (you knew it was coming), this is the only way I feel free. A counselor that I saw in college for a bit told me, "Melanie, you have a thing for brick walls. When you see one, you just don't believe it's there, so you bang your head up against it repeatedly until you have proven to yourself that it hurts. You won't let anyone tell you that it will hurt, you have to find out for yourself." Exactly. And I have the bruises to prove it. But I would never, ever trade those bruises for the simple answer from someone else that the brick wall will hurt. That's what true living is really about - testing out all of those brick walls!

Now that I am in my mid-to-late twenties, I'm not so much in a brick-wall-banging place anymore. That initial impulse to run headfirst into what others told me to avoid simply for the pleasure of disobeying has faded. I no longer gain pleasure from mindless rebellion (you can exhale now, Mom). But I still won't accept well-meaning advice, especially when it contains words like "reality" and "practical." I have gotten to the place where I understand that people say these things because they love you, and so I appreciate that love - really I do. But I know that in the end, I have to be the one to make the final decision. I can't do things just because they make life easier for others, or because they are the common, accepted thing to do. I see that more than ever now. I will never simply tolerate a job or a lifestyle just to pay the bills.

So that mountaintop? I'm still on it. And I'm not coming down. I will not with fox. I will not in a box. I will not in a house. I will not with a mouse. I will not eat them, Sam-I-Am, I will not eat green eggs and ham.