Thursday, November 26, 2009

Thanksgiving at the Edge of the Map

I begin by confessing that I have only recently been sucked into the blog-reading vortex. This is remarkable because I have for years prided myself on living my own life, not being a voyeur to others' lives. I don't watch TV, which practically makes me unAmerican and causes many blank looks when I reply that I have not seen that cute commercial someone wants to tell me about. I didn't even own a computer or have internet service until I married my sweet husband who brought both with him. Now I know how it starts--a casual mention in a magazine, a brief visit, then hours spent reading the entire archives in date order, feeling a mixture of guilt and inspiration. Then I found myself saying "I could do that," to which my husband said "Yes, you should," because he's terribly supportive of his wife's still-slightly-squashed spirit. So I have sat myself down, with my belly still full of turkey and all the trimmings, and determined to begin one more new endeavor among many. I'm 42 years old. Time to get busy.

I don't know if anyone else will ever read my electronic scribblings, but exposure isn't the point (although it could be some really nice gravy). After reading the real-life adventures and explorations of other normal people, I realize anew that we are all a story. I want to tell mine to myself, at least, in the hope that I will begin to live as the heroine of my own novel and stop incessantly feeling less-than. That goal may seem a selfish pursuit, but I have learned that sometimes what we think we're doing for just ourselves is really meant to bless others as well. (Thank you Molly and Jenna, though I never commented.) We must obey the inner voice when it speaks and let God put the pieces together. I will take one more step to make my life a finer thing, which I believe is a noble and frugal effort.

The irony is that I commence this account in limbo, crashing through doubts to just do, when my first sneaky inklings were to wait to start at a new beginning and recount the building of a Whole New World. That's how life sometimes is, veering and surprising. That's how I've found myself doing some of the best things I've ever done, in fact. Instead of a neatly packaged launch, I am shoving off from where most of us live, the messy middle, toward the edge of the map where unknown territory awaits. I pray there be no dragons.

Today, on this Thanksgiving at the edge of the known, I am thankful that life and our minds can change
. That hope is why I'm beginning this chronicle.

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