I'm standing in my kitchen today and I get a surreal feeling. Like, is this for real? Is this beautiful kitchen mine? Am I the lady of this house? How did I get here?
The lyrics of the Talking Heads song, "Once in a Lifetime" start playing in my mind. Part of it goes: "And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?"
Do you ever feel that way? Like you're just shamming; playing pretend; faking your way along? Today is that kind of day for me. Somehow I got to be the wife and the mom in this house. And I have to play those roles convincingly, even though I'm not always convinced myself that I can play them or even any of the other roles I play. I "coordinate" things for the church nursery and write up convincing sounding correspondence for my moms' group. I try to fake it in sales and marketing for my small business, pretending I've got a slick, professional operation when it's really just little old me at my computer banging out marketing copy and press releases.
I'm waiting for someone to find the curtain and pull it back to reveal...me. Just a simple gal, blowing all the bells and whistles to make it look like I know what I'm doing. Then again, maybe there is no curtain. Maybe I'm learning enough along the way that some of the things I'm doing are no longer shamming. And a saying I heard as a teen from motivational speaker, George O'Hare, still echoes in my mind louder than the Talking Heads lyrics. "Fake it 'til you make it", he said. Maybe he's right, maybe someday soon I'm actually going to "make it".
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
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4 musings:
The automatic response is to say something like, "Pay no attention to the mom behind the curtain..." But sometimes I feel a similar thing: Is this really my life? I think you're doing a fine job... even exemplary!
I had this thought just last week, when I saw some teenage girls from my alma mater at Sonic, I wondered how "yesterday" I was eating at that same table, cheerleading uniform and all, and now I am a suburban-driving mom of 4. Great comparison to the wizard of Oz. Thankful it's not all up to me!
*I linked to your site through TWV2*
This is so interesting b/c I've never thought of you as one who pretended. You have always come off very down to earth - like you're rather at peace about who are you and what you're doing. Very fascinating post...
-bm
Craver-thanks for the compliment.
TJ Wilson-glad you stopped by. It is a relief knowing it's not all up to us, isn't it?
BM-okay, on a day to day basis, what you see is what you get with me. But stopping to look at it all in the big picture, I'm not sure how I'm doing it and it doesn't feel real to me. Like I said though, some of that is just the learning of a new role, faking my way along until it comes natural.
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