Restless

I'm restless. And bored. 

I have two posts in draft form that I started but couldn't complete. I have a number of books that I wanted to read, but now I find I only want to want to read them. I can't find a movie to watch or music to listen to. I want to work in the garden but not quite.

I feel like I am waiting for something to happen.

One part of my brain tells me that I should make something happen for myself. Another part tells me that I need to be still because I am, in fact, waiting for something that can only be found when I am still. More evidence that it is complicated being me.

I've had the house to myself for two days. I'd be embarrassed to tell you how many times it has crossed my mind that this is what it will be like every day once my daughter moves out and my husband dies. Who thinks that way? 

And yet isn't that how you decide what it is you want to do? Sure, I have to take into consideration how my actions will affect my family, but really when you come right down to it, this is my life and I have to be the one making it up as I go. It's just me, or just me and God if I'm going to go there, and no one else.

One life. We get one life. Am I going big or am I going home? Is going big what I want? Is it necessary? Is it fun? What would "going big" look like for me? Do I want to spend the rest of my days wandering around my house wondering what to do next? 

I feel the urge to jump but I know not where or into what.

The other thing that keeps crossing my mind is that this is what my father must feel like every single day. He is alone for days on end, especially when the weather is bad. He has trouble sleeping. Days and nights must go on forever. 

I'd be drinking now if that were something I still did. Drinking dulls the buzz in my head and makes it easier not to think about the future or what I want or what life is going to look like in the years to come. My father starts to drink in the early afternoon and I'm not saying that is why he is alone and lonely at 78 but the older he gets the more he drinks and the more alone he becomes.

Just now I was reminded of a song. I looked up the lyrics to make sure I was going to quote them correctly and ended up watching a video of the band performing it instead. Come to find out I've had the lyrics wrong. The song is Dare You to Move by Switchfoot and all this time I thought the chorus said "Dare you to move like today never happened." I have always thought that this song was about picking yourself up after a terrible day and dusting yourself off, rubbing some dirt in it, and moving on. Turns out I have been missing the last word. 

Before. 

Like today never happened BEFORE.

That is part of what has me so restless, one day has been bleeding into the next and I haven't been treating each day like it is a new day. They've all been reruns of days past. These lyrics somehow completely escaped me:

The tension is here
Tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

I am feeling that tension, but I've been calling it restlessness. Boredom. I guess that is what I am waiting for, what I'm being still to listen for, the whisper of where I am going next.

Here's a link to the song if you'd like to take a listen: Dare You to Move