I Want To Want To

There are a lot of things that I think I should be doing. That inner voice is telling me–actually it’s quite loud, lecturing–all the things it thinks I should plan and undertake, but I don’t want to do them. I just want to want to.

So that’s how the time is spent–lavishing a low-level amount of guilt on myself about things that I used to enjoy doing or, simply, things that I’ve always wanted to do. Now, I have no emotional enthusiasm for them, and I feel bad about that, and I wonder if it will ever change.

Pete and I loved to have people over for dinner. We enjoyed the cooking, but mostly the conversation, and usually a little pickin’ at some point. I don’t want to do that anymore, but I really want to want to.

I have visions of a cross-country train trip that I’d like to take.  The Amtrak Zephyr is at the top of my list. Three or four days just to read and to write.  I’m sure I’m envisioning that it will be like the Orient Express, which I’m 99% sure it will not, but the romance of it beckons. When it comes down to it though, I never book that trip, but I want to want to.

I want to want to take an interest in sprucing up the house, or painting a room, or buying new deck furniture.

I want to want to get into the hot tub that Pete and I bought just in time for him to have a stroke so he was no longer allowed to use it.

I want to want to look forward to all the trips I have to make this year.

I want to want to be excited about working in the garden and planting flowers.

I want to want to go to the new exhibit at The Frist museum here in town or see the newest documentary at The Belcourt.

This whole “I don’t give a shit” attitude can’t be good, so I know enough to fight it. I verbalize it sometimes to my friends. I’ve now verbalized it to you. It’s amazing how well a person can function and still “not give a shit” sometimes. That must be the whole “fake it ‘til you make it” concept–a concept that has worked well for me, and many people I’ve known (some throughout their careers.)

Most of this lack of forward motivation doesn’t have to do with not wanting to do things without Pete. Some of it does. The things we only did as a couple. The dinner parties would definitely feel strange without him. But I’m not afraid to travel alone or have dinner by myself or see a movie alone. It just goes back to the fact that the wind is out of my sails, and the air on the horizon is still.

I can assume that wanting to want to, is a far cry from not wanting, or caring, to do anything. I guess if it’s taken me 2-1/2 years to even get to this point, then I must be making progress.

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