Hakuna Matata

Got your bag on your shoulder,
Never thought once about thinkin' it over.
Feel like you're the only one,
Who's ever been in a bad situation.
Now you need to take yourself a love vacation,
'Cause after all, what's done is done.

Sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Everything around you's growin' old.
The days drag on, the nights last forever,
Every day's tougher just to keep it together.
Forget everything you've ever known,
Except for home.

"Sick and Tired" -Cross Canadian Ragweed

I am Superwoman! Hear me roar! Well, it's more like a whine. Sort of a sigh, in fact. It's probably more akin to a breathy exhale. Still, I'm super, alright. Super tired. Super lost. Super unsure. Super scared.

Oh, I'm fine. I'm just like any other person on any other dismal afternoon. I see my life slipping by day after day after day. It's dizzying, isn't it - this life thing? When you're a kid, life goes by at about a -50 miles per hour. When did THIS happen? Now I'm on the Autobahn and life is outside my window, flying by at a pace that slightly exceeds the speed of light. I feel as though I might blink and miss an entire era! Am I alone in this? It's just this: I was supposed to grow up and be something. True, I'm many things. Wife, mother, step-mother, friend, daughter, employee, boss. I wear many, many hats (no wonder my hair looks so bad today). Still, I didn't ever really get to be anything I wanted to be, just yet. I think I'm running out of time, too. That's where the exhaustion comes to play. Life is tiresome. Just when you figure out what you want to do, you don't have enough energy to fit it in with all the other stuff you have to do. Or, at least, I can't. Can you? What did you want to be? I can answer that for myself. Indulge me, kk?

"I had a farm in Africa"
When I was around 13, I found myself spending the summer in Andrews, TX (parent free)with my oldest brother and his family. I did many things that Summer. I got a perm (it was the year of "Urban Cowboy" after all. Though I look like more of a Pam than a Sissy, I wanted more than anything to emulate Debra Winger). I got a fierce tan. I heard all the words to Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" for the first time. I ate my first Drumstick ice cream cone. And, I met - really, really met - my so-called-cousin Kelly for the first time. Kelly's great - always was, always has been. He's not really my cousin, by definition, I don't think. Still, we're exactly the same age and he's a part of my sister-in-law's family, so we were paired together almost every Summer visit. This year, for the first time, we were deemed responsible enough to roam the street's of Andrew's, TX alone - footloose and fancy free! A typical day consisted of: sleeping late, walking the streets with a walk-boy cassette player with either the aforesaid Fleetwood Mac OR ACDC's "Back in Black" playing loudly, a trip to the gas station where cousin Joanie would let us have free hot dogs, a root beer and a drumstick if she wasn't at work, and deep discussions about what grandiose plans we would have when we shed our stupid, insipid teenage personas and became the all powerful and omnipotent.....ADULT. We would show everyone! We were both going to be actors. I would act alongside Robby Benson, while Kelly would do documentary work. We would both be published - I was the next S.E Hinton, and Kelly would be a world class photographer who's pictures would decorate influential coffee tables around the world. And, above all, we would take these ginormous financial earnings and do the one thing we longed to do above all.....together, we would buy Africa! I had just read Joy Adamson's "Born Free." I learned all about and cried all about the amazing lioness, Elsa. Kelly had read it, too! We decided that, as amazingly wealthy adults, we could single-handedly eradicate every single poacher and re-educate the entire continent in regard to the majesty and beauty of the Serengeti wildlife! Besides, as I told Kelly, I would look great in a tan safari hat and earthen colored gear.

We wrote each other a few times after this encounter. We still saw each other on holidays and Summers. We talked more about our plans, but never as in depth as that time. We grew up. Adulthood wasn't all we though it would be. Kelly lives in Florida now, and I'm still here in the non-chic suburbs of Dallas. I never went to Africa. I never saw a lion in the wild. I never educated a poacher. I never even wore safari gear. Still, any time I watch "Out of Africa", I think of Kelly. I can actually hear the gnats, smell the wildlife excrement, hear the hoof beats and eery growls and roars. I'm not even a girl any longer. I'm a woman. I've won. I've lost. I've been up. I've been down. Sometimes I can't believe all I've been through. Other times, I feel I've wasted all my chances. And, it makes me sick....and tired.

Let's make this a series, shall we? Join me soon for Part 2 in my - "Things I Just Knew I Was Going to Do - The Sequel"! Until then, let's all get some rest.