On Wanting…

I started this essay as content for my book.  It turned into something that needed to be published here. So, here it is. -Kara

On Wanting

Sick. I feel it again.  I don’t know if it is the antibiotic that I have been taking recently, or the jet lag, or possibly the fact that I ate an extra handful of animal crackers with almond butter along with the tortilla veggie wrap I chefed together in my hotel room home.  This home is just for the night of course.  I have many one night stands like this.  In hotel rooms.  Alone.  This is how the life goes.  Completely alone, or always surrounded.

I went to the gym hoping that would help my sick.  I use that a lot- the gym.  To help me, and to cope.  It didn’t help.  I still have the nausea.  And, no- it’s not the signs of pregnancy.  Fact.  I napped upon arrival also.  That usually can fend away feelings of fatigue for a moment at least.  Unfortunately, I woke thinking that I wanted to stay in bed forever.  Or if that wasn’t possible, just to stay in this timezone long enough to feel better.  Or to feel.

Since I was little, I have displayed an aversion to napping.  The activity is now part of my adulthood life out of necessity.  I can’t survive without sleeping whenever time allows.  This sleeping does not usually happen when I want it to, but not much happens when I want it to these days.  That’s life.  Life happens when it feels like it, and there is little control that anyone of us can exert against happenings sometimes [TWEET THIS].  I still claw for any ounce of control that I can maintain in any part of my life.  I’m not sure why I won’t give up this futile fight for control.  This is probably my vice, my need for control.  The always present demon on my shoulder.

When I was a toddler, the only way that my parents could manage to make me sleep during daylight hours was to strap me in a car seat and drive around.  The problem is I hated car seats, so it really was Mom and Dad trading one horrible two year old tantrum for another.  I would scream and fume as any adorable devil child would do over being tied down.  Apparently balking at tie-down has been a long standing point of dissension.

I look at the text as I roll over on the fluffy white bed.  A UK Grey shadows the grassy courtyard outside my room.  It seeps through the shuttered windows.  I welcome the grey.  This message on my iPhone screen pushes the gloom aside, nosily inquiring-

“What do you want to do then?!?”

These words are followed by more than the necessary amount of apostrophes and question marks, flaunting its presence in my life and demanding its own answers. Well, I would like these answers too.  Let me ask you this:

How can one so assuredly know what is wanted, while simultaneously remaining in a state of utter obscurity over what to do?

This does not make sense.  I do not make sense.  Why am I on these never ending searches to make sense of shit that doesn’t make sense? I need to stop this.

So what do I want?  Maybe I want too much.  I am told by that God Inspired Book to be content in all situations, but also to continue to reach for the prize.   Well, I’m sure as hell not content, but that discontent has been, and is one of strongest motivators, because I don’t want to stay here.

Well, God.  If this has turned into me talking to you, and if you are actually listening, it’s quite simple what I want.

I want to snuggle alone in these white sheets, and fluffy pillows, falling into the beautiful dreams and hopes, and wake one day their realities.

I want to be inspired with creativity.

I want stories to tumble freely, and words to fit effortlessly.  I want to fit.

I want to do good.

I want to feel love.  You know, that one kind?  That last longer and deeper than my flight schedules.

I want to find acceptance.

I want to be enough.

And for some reason, this seems like too much to want.

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