Solipsism Confidential

I often feel like I was born at the wrong time, or in the wrong place, or to the wrong family... but, mostly, at the wrong time. I don't know if you've noticed yet, but I have a way of romanticizing myself and my situations. I'm like Barry Obama, but without all of that suspicion of being Muslim (insert tongue in cheek here, dontchaknow). I'm the safer Obama, with all of the lack of experience and moving, emotional articulation/sophistry.

A few years ago, maybe I'd have had the hubris to even match Obama's historic presidential run- wait. *listening* Really? *surprised* You don't say! *laughing* That's absolutely right! I did have the gall to assume and believe that I was fit to be the governing elected official over a body of citizens! [NOTE: I ran the first write-in candidacy for president of the day students of Brooklyn College. So. Many. Stories. Here.] Well, lookie there!

The truth is, though, that since running that campaign, my ideas about government, politics,and individuals have changed a bit. I'm still nowhere as cynical as many of my anarchist political brethren - but I do buy in to a kind of socialism (something I wouldn't have owned up to back then). I'm not entirely certain I buy into the Adam Smith style of capatilism made famous to hordes of my generation by a Russell Crowe flick. I do, however, believe in good ole American dedication and perseverance; strangely enough, though, the more I consider these traits, the more un-American they seem.

Maybe that's why it's easy for me to imagine that I'd fit in better with the Lost Generation, flying off to Paris with Gertrude Stein and lamenting the degeneration of America with Edith Wharton.

Or maybe I should've been in the South during the Civil Rights Era; I'm curious to see if I'd have had the cajones to stand up to The Man.

But tonight, while reading Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential and leafing through copies of Elle magazine to get to the designs I'd like to mimic in my own clothing creations, I realized where I'd best fit in: in New York City, during the 1980s. That heady, drug-fueled, birth-of-brand-name-narcissism time when a hip chick asserted her independence from the patriarchal views of society-at-large, Puritanical expectations of marriage-and-motherhood, and All-Around-Vanilla, and danced down the streets to her own beat as CBGBs swayed her hips and Run-DMC blew the crowds a kiss, and Basquiat hadn't yet put down his brush. That's where I wanna be!

I feel like I've finally seen the light, like I came to this realization about who I am and what I want. I now know the ends at which my desires put me with the Real World. I excel in this society, where diplomas and opinions from Those Already in Charge are what you need to go far. I've long ago mastered the art of seeming non-threatening to The Powers That Be while seemingly and paradoxically being Able to Get Resuls.

But I want so much more.

I want to live life like it's a design of my mind and I'm the first trying out its accessories. I want to ride it out, keep it cool, workable, runnable, and have it give me more of the awesomeness that I didn't expect it to have. I want to sing out loud, wear what makes me feel like me, have no pretentions, never act fake, never need to lie, share my perspectives, give voice to struggle, think richly, create unceasingly, love unflinchingly, talk without worry or fear. And act. Even if I'm on a Broadway stage, I want my actions to be real.

Today, as I was driving home from Brooklyn, I thought about the things I want to do. A laundry list of experiences spilled into my head and I realized that, even though I want a family of my own, the lifestyle that I have/will have in the next twenty years is not conducive to having children (and definitely not conducive to "settling down" with anybody.) But having a family of my own doesn't necessarily mean giving birth to children. [Oh geez, I CANNOT believe a cook's memoir has got me thinking about kids...] And motherhood is something that I don't want for a very, very, very long time. I like the idea of experiencing all life has to offer before becoming a mom; I don't want to be resentful of the little buggers and I'd like to have a thing or twenty to teach em, too.

But this thing that's happening with me: this being instead of wanting to be. The active voice instead of the passive voice. The change in the way I write, the way I process information, the way I act - I actually reread parts of this blog and my last blog and was bowled over by the stark contrast - fills me with wonder and purpose that can only be rivaled by motherhood. And as much as I realize that I might have fit in better in another time, I can't help but wonder if I'm in this time for a reason. Maybe I'm the throwback to a set of mannerisms that went out with LES eccentricity. Maybe my white-collar background is exactly the canvas I need to splash a little life experience around. Maybe I'm just waxing poetic, and this is all an illusion masterminded by some evil demon.

If the last is true, and I'm no Descartes, then blogging at least makes it real.

*thinking*

Another idea for a This Girl's Life article... even though I haven't finished the last one.