Last month About.com let a whole category of writers--whom they called "Topic Writers"--go bye-bye. And one of those topics happened to be that of Portuguese Cuisine, which was my column.I'm not upset in the least. And don't let the fact that I did not link the word "About.com" to About.com in the previous paragraph lead you to think otherwise. Also the fact that the word "about" is no longer allowed in our household should not make you think that I hold any grudges. My daughter will survive just fine saying, "But Mom, what should I do blank that homework assignment I lost?" Or "Blank what time will you be picking me up today?"
I'm just kidding. I am really not upset because a) the pay basically sucked and b) I can keep creating Portuguese recipes and posting them on my blog whenever I want to.
Also we were getting sick of codfish in my house. They say the Portuguese have a hundred different ways to prepare cod and, by Cod, I think it is true.
And the process has caused me to examine my life and my interests more deeply. What I have come to realize is that I actually have a million passions--or close to.
I was raised, both by my parents and by my culture, to choose something to do and then proceed to study that thing in college and go on and do it for the rest of my life. Unlike many, my parents were not dictatorial about what that thing should be and I appreciated that.
Nonetheless, I was ill prepared to know what that one thing was at the age of eighteen. There were many things I enjoyed doing, however, so I rather arbitrarily picked one of them, which was Drama. I did not think I would be a very good actress and I was good in Art class, so I decided I should be a set designer.
One positive thing you can say about me is that when I do decide to do something, I waste no time in getting it done. So I found the schools that would most efficiently train me to be a Set Designer in four years. Those schools offered a BFA conservatory program in Scenic Design and while there, I did basically nothing else but that. I think I took two non-theater classes the whole time.
Too bad it wasn't a genuine organic decision (one which I think very few eighteen-year-olds are prepared to make anyway). My daughter, the ice dancer, is passionate about what she does. And I mean passionate when I say that--Passionate with a capital P and super-double italics. I, on the other hand, was not passionate about set design with even one set of italics.
Don't get me wrong--I did enjoy it quite often and I made a career out of it for many years. But I didn't love it in the way that can tide you over when the going gets rough.
This year my daughter is a Senior in High School, and it causes me to realize how very different it is for her. There is no big decision to make here. She will just keep on doing what she has been doing, elite athletic training, because she loves it. She might change her mind sometime, and that's fine. One way or another her career will shift over time because there is a limited frame of time in which to be a competitive athlete.
Now we all know that in this day and age, very few of us manage to have just one career throughout our lives anyway. Everything else aside, we live a lot longer these days and have time for more than one.
So it doesn't bother me that I've had a few different ones. But unfortunately I have tended to repeat the pattern I started in Senior year of High School, and entered each one with Gusto. Gusto, that is, about making it happen, rather than gusto for the thing itself. I never seem to be willing to allow that to develop over time, the way it should.
Until now, anyway. And now I have come to realize that I have one million passions, or close to that number. I am a mom, writer, knitter/crocheter, skating geek/skating mom and manager, rug maker, designer, marketer, travel leader, hiker, life coach, and....
What I am toying with these days is just allowing that to be--and see what happens next. I am thinking, perhaps, that if I let myself love all of those things and do all of those things, without pinning myself down to just one of them too quickly, I might be a whole lot happier. Maybe something will organically develop into a thing I am so passionate about that I will do it more than any other thing.
Or maybe it won't. But then I won't care because I will be doing everything else that I adore.
This blog will be moving to a new venue soon, and will be re-named, what else--"One Million Passions." I will let you know when it happens!
