a life less ordinary
There's a reason I have a love/hate relationship with movies like Lord of the Rings and X-men. These movies are fun and uplifting. They cater to the mind of the dreamer and the geek. I watch them for the same reason I devoured sci-fi books by the dozens when I was younger and had the time. They draw me in, they make me part of an adventure. For a few hours after, they leave me with the glow of a life less ordinary.

I tend to get swept up in movies, which, ironically, is why I like so few of them. So few deserve my attention and interest, much less the investment of my overactive imagination. Movies I'm willing to be part of are rare, and when I find them, they get a special place on my shelf next to American Beauty, The Fifth Element, The Matrix and Contact. Yes, shut the fuck up, I was one of the people who loved Contact.

The problem is, that for all the wonder and joy escape fiction and fantasy can provide, it's also such a letdown. I laid awake in bed last night for an hour after we came back from X2, alone and wanting something more than could be given to me. It wasn't that Jean Gray and Wolverine had me worked up into some kind of fangirl frenzy, it was that I wanted to passion for something that was mine, to remind me that I, too, could have a "life less ordinary."

But after 30 minutes in the dark wrestling with my own consciousness and wondering why I was too worked up to sleep (maybe I was just too giddy from all the action?), I realized that I was pissed off precicely because I was looking for something that I don't have. That's it, my brain told me. And my heart deflated into a sad little sack. That's it. There was a dream there, once. One which, as a little girl, I'd hoped and dreamed and prayed would come true. I dreamed it and while I could I lived it, just to convince myself it was possible. Lately, burdened under the countless things I give myself just to prove how strong and how extraordinary I am, I had, ironically, even forgotten about this dream. Last night, I realized it was a broken dream. There is no life less ordinary. There is no "special" for me. There is no intensity.

I try to give it to myself. I try to prove I can do anything, that I can be anything, for anyone. I contemplate my own mortality and seek adrenal experiences (you know, skydiving, mountaneering, reckless driving, etc) that take me a little closer to that instant of ultimate clarity just before death. I try to mold myself an epic with the shards of a childish castle dream. And then I sit around and whine, always an optimist for the future but never allowed to relish the now unless it is in some way Incredible. Which it's not. And that's fine. Because I should damn well get used to it. There is no Epic. I made that up in my own mind to compensate for the lack of fantasy in my life. I gave myself Drama to replace Dreams. There is no Authoria. There is no Seneca.

Maybe there could have been, if I'd tried hard enough to believe in something. Maybe it's me who failed myself. But if it were that easy to imagine a fantasy real, we'd be living in a world full of ghosts, werewolves, superheroes and villains instead of just wishing that we did... cos God knows people have been trying to make the surreal into the real since the beginning of time.

Every now and then there comes along something that gives me, for the briefest of times, a glimmer of hope for the surreal in the real. I take Tai Chi because there are times when I can mold my Chi, when i feel as if it could be used as a force if trained, when I sense the energy in everyone. But now I'm failing to see even that.

I can not find a God, a force, an anything to hold me, possess me, and drive me. Wicca seemed enlightening for a time, especially when I "cured" Justin. But the wonder there, like the wonder for everything else, faded into the background. I want to be owned by a passion or a faith in something (love, magic, god) that is enough oneness to make life worth living. I want to be rocked in the throes of something so magnificent and intense that it transcends the human experience. Part of me tells me to shut up and get over it, that making each day its own pinnacle should be enough. But I can't do that, I can't wake up and make each day magnificent or even convince myself that I feel an inkling of spiritual contentment. In every other respect, I can be content, but not in this one enormous thing. And that is why I'm a seeker, an "experience junkie," a wanderer. Why I'm a muse and a heartbreaker. Because nothing is ever good enough until I can find something to tell me who I am, to tell me I'm incredible, fantastic, phenominal-- to prove to me that I AM a life less ordinary.