Outsider

This blog is once again written on borrowed time (Hunter is napping). I had a discussion with my husband last night- and among other things I somehow came to the ultimate conclusion that I don't fit in this world. Before everyone tells me how loved I am- that is not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the American Dream and how I really hate it. The American dream is the idea that if you work hard enough and perservere- you can accomplish anything- and the sacrifices and toil that lead to success are praiseworthy and bring integrity and prestige. In my words: workaholics and smoozers are our kings and queens. I think at one point the idea of being able to accomplish what seemed impossible was a wonderful thing. I don't knock that. My problem is the pace and intensity with which the expectation to follow the American Dream has come into play. No one is ever satisfied. Joy has been sucked out of living. Doing and achieving are the new moral norms of goodness. Success = goodness.

I am the kind of person who would like to measure her time by hours and days. In our culture, people measure time by minutes and seconds. I cannot live in seconds. I cannot have joy in seconds. And yet, in order to survive, in order to have even enough success to live above the poverty line (unless of course, you were screwed from the beginning), you have to race in seconds.

Even if you're lucky and you do what you love or have a working environment that respects boundaries, time, etc.- it is still the honorable thing to be told to go home. It still has been ingrained in us to feel guilty to ask for a day off. It is still a power over someone else if you're the one working overtime or achieving overtime. These ideas are all so so so SO normal to everyone else but me.

And this is why I feel like I don't fit. I want to water plants and measure their growths in days and weeks. I want to develop relationships and cultivate a craft and meaure my growth in joy and shared sorrow. But I won't get paid and I won't get ahead and I need to have a clean house and a fit body before I can have time for joy.

I need Sabbath, and I'm starting to realize that people around me don't understand the concept, much less think they need it. In the American culture- Sabbath is for weak people. Sabbath is a pause to get energy to do it all again. We are made to be productive.... and in that undertanding- I feel like a failure. I have to remind myself again and again that it just might be possible that I'm not. It just might be possible that God works in months and years, and I'm too fast.