Ever since I was younger I’ve always had magnificent ideas in my head of things I’ve wanted to do. I remember when I was about 9 or 10 deciding very determinedly that I was going to be astrophysicist. Now anyone who knows me now will find that to be a very laughable thing but I was serious. I sat reading through the work we’d done on a Space project last year while my brother sat on laughing telling me it was just a phase.
The next week I was back to wanting to be a vet.
The other day when I was tidying out a section of my spare room (which is “my room” if you were, my computer is in here, my witch books, my pinboard). I found in there at least 3 different projects I had started and never really got anywhere with.
The first thing I stumbled across was “Beginners Latin” printed off from the National Archives. I’d printed this because I was going to be reading lots of really old documents at the record office. Well as you can imagine this never happened, I never finished the Beginning Latin, and I’ve yet to make it to the record office.
The next thing I found was some Ancestry records and house history information. A while ago I had perchance looked up my home on there and found this chap called George Willitts and his family who lived here from 1851 – 1891, that I found anyway. And I looked him up, I found out information about him and a fellowship, I found out one of his son’s went off to live in Gloucestershire and worked with a Workhouse, that his daughter became the teacher of a school on this very street, that the record office has photographs of them all, that they lost at least 3 children due to the infant mortality rates of the day. It was really really interesting, and I know there is more I can discover. For example, that was only half of this current property; I still had number 40 to search. But it stopped and never happened. I bought a house history kit too to discover more about this house, the title deeds from 1700’s are in the records office too. I still haven’t seen them.
The other thing I found was my attempts to learn Theban. Theban is called the Witches Alphabet and was first published in the 16th Century. It’s a wonderful script and today witches use it f or spellcasting and writing their books of shadows to keep it’s contents hidden from prying eyes. When I first did this I did well, I could write Theban and write it back though it did take a little while. I had translated Harry Potter passages off the internet into Theban for translating. But soon that too was forgotten in favour of something more shiny no doubt.
I can’t help but feel that I’ve kinda taken this approach to loads of aspects of my life. Like my spirituality, I know I’ve been umming and ahhing about that for quite some time, partly because I didn’t know quite what I believed . Some days I would be very into it, read and read, research on the internet, the next I’d find something else to do. Or I wouldn’t have time. And I think that’s the killer.
Time. Who ever has enough time? Who can honestly say they have the time to achieve every little thing they want to do in life? Monday – Friday it’s up in the morning, work 9-5, home and domestic duties, dinner, washing up, washing, tidying. Me and Andy like to stop and watch DVD’s or TV shows when we have dinner. Sometimes I get as little as a half hour in the evening to myself. Is this enough time for anything? Well I could sit and read a book, or if I was incredibly forward thinking and was prepared I could do a ritual. Or I could stop and learn some Theban or Latin for about 20 minutes before checking Facebook and heading to bed. Currently I usually have Tuesday evenings free to myself as Andy goes out to a gaming club and what do I do? Sit on the internet. I talk to friends, I’ll watch the odd thing on iPlayer, and occasionally I might play a game or watch something on youTube. But most of the time, I’m on Facebook, Tumblr or my current distraction, SecondLife. The latter however I go on for education. Children of Artemis, a UK based International Witch Community, run workshops and lessons on there which is brilliant. It’s because of them I know exactly what I am. But sometimes I sit there for ages for someone to talk to, and when I get bored I just skydive off the Eiffel Tower . You can do that you know.
This blog again was a project and although I’ve actually manage to keep posting in it while I remember, or get accosted by people on Facebook, I still consider it a failed project. My initial intention was to post to it every month and I’ve failed in that aspect. I know at the moment I have more pressing concerns but still. I didn’t do what I said I was going to do and I hope that I can correct that in the coming months.
My inability to follow projects through to the end concerns me and I’m worried about how it’s going to affect my future. I have plans for the future, I do. I want kids, I want to study and I want to do something with my life. But what’s to say that after one module of learning my passion for history suddenly fades? Who’s to say that I won’t change my mind about having kids a moment too late? What if I can’t manage being a mum? If I complain about lack of time to do anything now when I have kids I won’t have time for anything. If I feel like my desires are just “phases” how do I get myself out of the rut I’m stuck in to know that I can carry something on?
I had this problem with the Oxfam Group I joined. I loved it, I did but I left because I felt like I couldn’t carry it on. Like it was just my project for the time and unfortunately I let people down because of it. I don’t want to let anyone down by my shortcomings again. Especially me, and I know I will be the one let down the most.
So I’m going to go back to one of my projects, I don’t know which one yet, possibly Theban as I feel it’s one of the easier, or pick something new that’s relevant to where I want to be, and I’m going to complete it.
1 comments:
I don't think I can possibly count the number of projects i've started but never finished: At one time, my absolute no.1 creative project was planning a sci-fi film trilogy, based on a short story I wrote at school - now that has been utterly sidelined; similarly a music project of mine, putting a lot of my creative ideas onto one concept album; has also become deprioritised.
Even the NaNoWriMo project from last year - that has now dropped down to being a single chapter of an abandoned book.
But the main thing is that I still have projects i'm trying to do. Like a new non-fiction book. A new music project; oh and that thing I should've completed way back in time for Christmas 2010.
And yes my focus swings around wildly each day. Sometimes I wake up with something new & creative in my head - or some chunk of work to do on an existing project.
Other days I just want to get through work, head home, and play computer games.
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So I'm now trying to trim down my 'ongoing projects' and have figured out which ones mean the most to me in the long term, to see how they go.
Haven't quite got to the stage of 'publish a book by the time i'm 30' - but it's close - in that I certainly want to publish some form of book, with my thoughts on life in it.
And the rest I will come round to, in the fullness of time*
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*Does not allow for imminent rapture-ness this evening...
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