Janice M Cali
Finding Happiness or Bliss
Blissful Freedom
Finding your happiness in life. What is your “bliss?” and how do you find it? Do you know? I don't.
For many years now I've been searching for that one thing that I love and will forever want to do. I paint, reasonably well; I can sculpt, but not great; Pottery is fun and I'm fairly good at it; Jewelry making is good and again, I do it well enough; I'm an excellent cook, almost gourmet but I cook rarely; as an interior designer I can match some of the best, for myself; my writing is passable by most standards, my fiction makes most people laugh when I want it to; I'm a photographer, can build almost anything if I need to, can tile a floor, paint a wall, do basic plumbing and electrical work, change a tire and I'm pretty damn good with computers. But nothing I've done with my life inspires me to a stage that I never want to stop doing it.
The one thing that came closest was working with glass over a flame and in a kiln. I like hot glass, but not blowing it. I'd like to say I love it, and I do, but do I love it enough to make it my life's work? I just don't know. I wanted to be a gemologist, but there are reasons that didn't happen, complicated and too long to explain here, suffice to say, the money and location weren't available and still aren't.
For more years than I can name I've dreamed of finding the one thing in life that will make me happy, the work that I can do and never tire of... computers seemed to be it, but when the PC came in and the larger systems went out, the joy of taking care of the big ones went out the door, anyone can take care of a PC, to a degree and they just aren't as much fun, as a matter of fact they are really just tools that I use because they make other things easier.
When I was about five years old I fell in love with horses. That love has never gone away. When I was 19 I applied to two veterinary colleges in Pennsylvania, I was turned down, not because I didn't have the grades but because girls didn't become vets, I was just going through a phase, all girls fall in love with horses, but they grow out of it and so would I. My mother was livid, so was I, they wouldn't even consider me for admission. I was crushed, a friend of my fathers, not for long thank goddess, suggested I become a nurse, I didn't want to be a nurse I told him, then how about a teacher, no way I replied. Then you might as well get married young and have your family young. It seemed that I had two options in this man's head for a career, nursing or teaching, and failing that I could get married and let some man support me. Somehow I didn't envision any of those choices in my life.
Yesterday I turned 63, I'm too old to go to veterinary college now, by the time I got out I'd be 70 or more, and they won't take me now because of my age. I've always wanted to raise horses, why because I love 'em. To me they exemplify grace of movement, beauty of freedom, to watch a horse run across a field or hill, head high, tail flying and the joy he shows as he does this is a thing of beauty beyond compare. Can I raise horses? NO, I don't have the money or physical strength it takes.
Where's my bliss to come from? I just don't know and I honestly believe that is part of why I suffer from depression. Painting is good but not enough, photography is all right, but not enough, cooking, if I'd known you could study to be a chef when the vet colleges turned me down, I almost certainly would have tried that route and suspect I would have been happy as a lark, but now it isn't open to me either. Not because of age, but because of the physical demands of the job and they don't design kitchens for people in wheelchairs (no, not all the time, just when tired plus I can't stand for hours).
So here I am 63 years old, with the mindset of a 30 year old. I have all these things I want to do with my life, raise horses, dogs, goats, travel the world, design great jewelry, make beautiful glass, sculpt a small masterpiece, maybe design houses and build them, or better, buy old, old houses, and restore them to the original beauty and grace. Yes, these are things my mind is willing to do and wants to do, along with open a really good restaurant, take up ballet again, race sport cars across the mountains of California as I did as a teenager, fall in love again, I just don't know, there is so much to do and try and I'd like to do and try them all. I'd like to take a canoe between the Hawaiian Islands, and snorkel in the Caribbean ocean, live in Alaska for a year, a full one to see if I'd be able to handle a summer without dark and a winter without sun (doubtful). Visit the palaces of Cathrine the Great and gaze on the great works of art she collected. Travel the trans Siberian railway. Everything, until that one thing that made my life so complete that I knew that this was the thing my life was made for... the one and only thing that I could do forever and always be happy.
How many of you live your dream? How many of you know what your bliss is? How many of you dream extravagant dreams and plan, somehow, to fulfill them? I'd really like to know. Am I alone in wanting to do everything, try everything, be everything? Let me know.
My dreams do not lessen with age, they only grown stronger and have a stronger sense of urgency as I find that I'm not as young as I think and feel and my body tells me that it isn't as strong as it was, I'd like to live those dreams, at least some of them. And, I don't know how, or when, but I will, I know I will.
This sad and lonely world needs dreamers and believers in those dreams. Maybe that's what I'm meant to do, dream. We'll see. I'll let you know.
