The Scenes to the Play of Life

Some thoughts I've gathered going through my week:

Life is like a play and different people are in different scenes

When we are little we play the role of baby, then child, then teenager, as we pass into adulthood we play the role of young adult, adult, middle aged and old aged.

The young have difficulty understanding the roles of adulthood and in some ways adults forget how to play the roles of the young.

Life has always been hard, I'm not saying that in a fatalistic or pessimistic way but it is a statement of fact.

I remember clearly hoping for the next stage in life thinking that I would escape the uncertainty, loneliness and difficulties of the stage that I was in. To a certain extent I now look back at the seemingly carefree days of my youth and longing for simpler times (when I wasn't in charge of making sure everything was OK).

The characters in my play when I was little included my grandparents, my parents, my brothers and sister, my cousins, aunts and uncles, the kids at school and the kids in the neighborhood. In the auxiliary scenes were people in my church, my teachers, principal etc.

I had a certain world view, my days were spent at school, at church and at home. I had difficulty making friends because I am a deep thinker and most of the time it was hard to convey my thoughts to others. I liked to play with dolls, do my hair and make-up, a lot of the same things as other girls but I have never been able to just think of shallow things. In the back of my mind were the stacks of books that I wanted to read, the things I wanted to influence and change (in my family), and the projects I wanted to take on in my own fantasy world. I wanted to have fun, I had a lot of fun, but it was usually me coming up with wild schemes and plans, I was always thinking of something new to do. It was hard for me to relate to other kids, other girls especially. I was a Tom Boy I suppose though that terminology seems to have changed. I can't say that I felt like a boy so I will stick with Tom Boy.

I was lonely, in my own world trying to learn about everything, I broke out of that world when my cousins would come over and when my brother and I would play video games. There again I would play video games and even got addicted to them but I felt some amount of shame for wasting my time so I found myself turning away from them.

My desire to fit in led me to make stupid decisions. Like going along with my "friend" who went shop lifting. Luckily I got caught and had to talk to a judge and that ended my shoplifting career. What was not so lucky for me was that I wanted to have a boyfriend, that desire led me to become a young mother.

And the scenes of my life changed.

As a young mother I was still a teenager so I still felt the desire to play and do fun things. This led me to put up a swimming pool outside of the window in our kitchen and climbing through with my kids. I still liked to watch Pokemon and play the game. I was jealous of my cousins who could still go out on dates and I really just lost touch with them because they couldn't relate to me and we couldn't do a lot of teenage things together.

The player in my life were still the same but with the added dynamic of a husband (who was still a teenage boy) and babies who needed me to be a mother.

I had a great desire to be the kind of mother they deserved, and I desired to go to school in order to be a good example for them.

Fast forward to my life now. My children are all growing up, my youngest is 10, I've been divorced from my first husband now for 6 years and separated/divorced from my second for 6 months. I don't know how this stage of life is supposed to work, I get the whole going to work and providing for my children aspect but I no longer go to church so that whole community of people and set beliefs is no longer there. I made breakfast for my children this Easter morning, and gave them small Easter presents but they will have to wait to do their Easter Egg hunt at my parents. Then that is getting awkward, unless my nieces are there the only one who is still technically a child is my youngest girl at 10. This developing stage of my life is me, without the support of a husband, without that consistency... and it's weird. Who do I let into the scenes of my life's play now? I don't exactly want to be in a relationship right now, I don't think I've found the right person, I don't know if I will ever find the right person. The person who I thought was right, turned out to think I was the wrong person and left... and that has been really hard for me. I gave my heart, my hopes and dreams to someone and the relationship that we had... and now it's gone.

That is the play of my life right now, the scenes don't make a lot of sense to me. I don't really know how to play this part, but I will figure it out.

SG