I watched the documentary tonight, Being Elmo. What a great look inside the life of a puppeteer. Especially a muppeteer- I have loved the muppets ever since I was a little muppet myself, glued to my television set and feeding off PBS like it was the nectar of life. I cried when Mister Hooper died, dressed up for Maria and Luiz’s wedding, and I fell in love with Elmo at first sight. I put “Elmo doll” on my Christmas wish list long before “Tickle Me Elmo” was even dreamt up. (I finally got my long-ago-wished-for furry Elmo doll, but it was years later, when I was in college. He was my going away present the day that I moved into my first dorm room.)
Why is life so much more complicated when you get older? I have felt restless lately, tangled up in long days at work and the constant web that is contemplating what in the world to do with your life. I am told that I am still young and have time to figure out all these things, but I am a long way from wearing a flower hair clip and a pink bridesmaid’s dress in my parents’ family room on Venus Drive. Being happy goes from something that you wake up with and is tucked into bed with you at night, to being something that you seem to have to fight for against the rest of the world. Why are some people so mean? Why do bad things have to happen to people who are not bad? You have this idea of what growing up is, of what the world is going to be like when you get out there in the ‘real world’- but you find even more questions than you had when were 4 or 5. Instead of watching someone on television die, you watch your own grandparents slip away. Things you thought they would be there for, experiences you waited for to share with them, just never came to pass. Life is hard. There are good moments, and bad days, and nothing ever really goes as you planned- which can be good or bad, depending. And many days you come home from work or a party or wherever it was that you were at, and you think, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Sometimes I feel like a shadow of myself. I am shy and insecure. I thought I would outgrow this, but I’ve just gotten better at faking it. Is that all we’re doing- faking our way through life? I want to live, I want be open and free and show the world who I am, and to learn and see and taste and do everything I can in this life. Life can feel so fleeting at times, and even at only 27 I can sometimes feel like I won’t be able to do it all. I’m still standing at the bottom of that fabled fig tree, trying to make up my mind before all the figs shrivel up and leave me with naught. But I’m too scared to reach out or speak out or do whatever you need to do- everything feels just beyond my grasp, sometimes.
They say your twenties are a tumultuous time, and that in your thirties things begin to even out. I guess in a few years I’ll find out if that’s true or not. I’ve changed a lot from the person who I used to be, and in some ways I feel very mature and accomplished and adult-like, while other times I feel like I’m just making things up as I go along. Maybe that’s how life is- you just improvise with what you’ve got. I don’t know. I think too much- that I do know. Things can just feel too fast paced sometimes, too complex. I don’t want to deal with insignificant drama, on people and things that cause me stress and don’t matter in the grand scheme of this all-too-short life. I want to feel free, and open, and happy. Is that even possible in today’s world?
Anyways. I feel a bit better to get that written out. Heavy thoughts- they’ve been weighing me down for a little bit now. Maybe I’m just missing a creative outlet in my life right now.
Less heavy thoughts- I can’t watch Jeff Goldblum in something without thinking of Jurassic Park.
Run, Jeff, run!
Ok, that’s all for tonight. Thanks for indulging.
calicocas 