Waiting At the Altar

I’m ready to settle down. I’m not ready to settle (I hope I never will), just find a place a stay a while. Plant seeds. Take a walk. Smell the flowers. Take a nap. Watch.

I feel as though since my junior year in college, I’ve been on a wild meaning chase. It’s kind of like a wild goose chase, but since I’ve never seen a wild goose, I’m not sure what such a chase would look like. And what would you do with a goose if you caught one? So maybe a wild goose chase is something no one has ever really gone on, because the fear of being stuck with a wild goose is more frightening than the actual chase. At any rate, I’ve been chasing meaning, and I hope to God it will stop running sometime soon so I can catch up.

I suppose my main problem lies in the fact that I’ve tied up meaning with a career, arranging a marriage for two beings who often fight, but every now and then can be caught sipping iced tea on the front porch swing. Perhaps this is the source of all my tension and my tension headaches. I’m very good at finding jobs and careers that make me successful, but none that make me happy.

But I see people all around me who have been able to set up these friends (career and meaning) on a blind date. And lo and behold, they’ve been to the wedding! Jim, at the hotel, found his life calling in sales, and doesn’t even want a promotion he’s so happy at selling hotel rooms! Hal, at Oasis, left a lucrative corporate gig in England to run a nonprofit that supports youth. My dad loves the work he does in healthcare. Brad likes working in recreation. How have so many people around me seemed to have been to the wedding of career and meaning while I’m standing here waiting to catch the bouquet?

It’s not that I don’t have ambitions, hopes, and dreams. Every wrong turn shows me yet another path not worth my time. I am happiest lately when working with teenagers. I have skills of leadership and vision that allow me to direct others towards a common goal. I want to help people. Are the merging of these desires unrealistic, like the blonde bombshell who also is a nuclear physicist, fluent in seven languages, and loves to drink beer? And even if I saw this catch at the other end of the bar, what’s my pickup line?

Bringing back memories of sweaty palms and stomach butterflies as I walked to the door with a corsage for my prom date, I feel like I am on the verge of something great, like my future is right behind the next door. But maybe that ‘future’ is a suspicious father, waiting with shotgun in hand to warn some pubescent punk to keep his hands off his daughter.

Fear is usually based on the unknown. What a crappy plague on our finite humanity. So we fret, worry, sweat, pace, and get headaches because we have no idea what’s behind the next door. Should we open it? Should we go in? Will we have time to run back out into the hallway if we don’t like what we see? Are there more open doors behind this one? Who put these doors here anyway? And why can’t I remember where I put my keys?

So, I keep searching. Just like I found love where I least expected it, I’ll probably find my life’s calling, or at least my next five years’ calling, bumping into me as I stumble out of a coffee shop on a rainy, random Tuesday. That makes for a much better story, anyway.