Hope And Fear

This new life is everything I had hoped for - and all I feared. The girls are doing so well. It's all I could have dreamed for. And they are doing it without much from me. It's healthy and good and all it should be. And my marriage is so much better than it ever has been. I'm working, we can pay the bills, the house is beautiful.

And my fears of being unneeded are also being realized. What is someone like me supposed to do if no one needs me? I am fighting the urge to fill the time with more duties and commitments. My life is already so full it makes most people's head spin. But there are an increasing number of moments when I don't have anything pressing on me. That leaves me hanging; too full of my thoughts, feelings, memories. A fearful thing indeed.

I read an interesting column today - The Busy Trap. Author Tim Kreider had some interesting insights... how we use our busyness to puff up our egos, to fill the void of no real life, to run from ourselves. "Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day."

Much of this I already recognize in myself. I've been talking about it for years; dancing around the edges pretending I had all this insight and wisdom. Now it gets real. Now I face an empty house each night. Now I have to deal with the things I do to drive my husband away. Now I have to face my lack of friends, my shallow relationship with God.

I know I'll get there - that I will weather this transition in time. But it's interesting to realize that the very thing I had hoped for forces me to face the fears I'd been hiding from. Hope and fear mingle once again in this messy thing called life...