Freedom�s just another word for nothing left to lose.

I knew exactly what I wanted to write about earlier, and now it is gone like a drifting smoke. I wish I could remember these things. I�m finding that as I get older I am losing things. Not knowledge, per se, for that will come eventually, but I am forgetting where I put that knowledge. The shelves have become so crowded and disorganized in my brain that retrieval is no simple matter anymore. The adage that a cluttered desk is indicative of a cluttered mind must be true. No matter how tidy and sparsely furnished my work space starts out, it always ends up a total mess, mostly with things that are not mine, but still end up gathering dust and taking up room.

I think this is a metaphor for my life in general. The one year I lived alone in a basement apartment in a sixplex on Talbot Street, I managed to keep the place neat, clean, and I knew where everything was. Mind you, I didn�t have that much stuff, but dirty dishes never built up in the sink, laundry never overflowed the hamper and my desk remained neat. As soon as I started living with my husband, mess accumulated. With kids it got worse. But it�s not just the physical mess they make that clutters up my life, it�s all the time they take up: the provision of meals, of clean laundry, making sure they get to where they have to go on time, driving them all over the place (when, oh when are they going to get their licences?), worrying about them when they don�t call. If there ever was a test for proving ability to think of others before oneself, parenthood is it.

So my mind and my life are so taken up with other people�s crap that I have no space left over to remember who I am and what I want to do, let alone what my diary entries are supposed to be. I sometimes ask myself if I knew then what I know now, would I still have married and had children and given up a possible career as a performer, definitely graduate work, in order to devote myself to the care and feeding of others? I really can�t say. Life would have been different, that�s for sure. But better? I don�t know. I love my husband, I adore my kids, I really enjoy teaching singing, and I like the freedom I have as a part-time student to pursue the courses that interest me and that don�t necessarily lead to a degree.

On the other hand, could I have been successful as a singer? I doubt it. My voice didn�t really start to blossom until I was in my mid-30s, way too late for competitions. I probably would have ended up working as a legal secretary for the rest of my life. Perish the thought. No, I think I did the right thing. But since I spent all those years raising kids and thinking of others before myself, I have become rather selfish of late. I�m sure this is what sparked the tension between Hubby and me regarding the dance, and I�m still stinging a little from his reaction. But I am a master at subjugating my desires for the good of the family unit, even if it means my temporary unhappiness. I hope it�s temporary, anyway.

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