My Want List

Due to the fact that I work third shift, I have absolutely no regular sleep schedule. I can stay up all night or, if I don't work, I can be in bed by eight-thirty and sleep the night through. This morning I woke up at five. I lumbered into the computer room only to remember my husband had taken the computer to be fixed. So I tiptoed back into the bedroom to watch television.

I was looking through the movies available for rent when I saw a category called "Free Movies." Under this selection were different channel headings and I chose the Sundance Channel. It looked like the usual documentary and quirky movie fare. I quickly chose to watch a documentary called FLOW: For Love of Water. It was all about how the world's water supply is quickly becoming privatized and poor people are being robbed of their birth right to free water. It also touched on the subject of large corporations in the United States digging wells and drying up creek beds that flow through other people's land and what gives them the right to the water. And it claimed that in five to ten years, some states in the west will run out of water.

I always end up crying when I watch things like this. A small part of my upset is due to empathy of the poor people and their plight. But if I am honest, the real reason I get so weepy is because these movies make me confront my own life. This is in two parts.

The first part is the fact that I feel absolutely helpless. I mean, what can I possibly do to change the world? This is why I don't like watching the news with my husband (who watches news all day long). It makes me feel out of control. I can't change the crazy shit this country is doing.

The second part is I do want to do something to make a difference.

For the last few years and especially the last year, I have felt very uneasy. I have felt like I have no purpose to my life. My husband thinks this is crazy considering I graduated nursing school and I work on a cardiac oriented unit in a hospital. He points out that every time I go to work, I am making a difference in someone's life. I acknowledge that. I do connect with some of my patients.

Still, I have a need to fill my life with something else. I'm not sure if we are going to have a child, which is a whole other story. If we don't, I need something else. I want to do the things we always just talk about. The way to get there though, is not easy. Time is money. To have money you have to work. To have money, you have to stop living paycheck to paycheck. To stop living paycheck to paycheck you have to face your materialistic tendencies. You have to decide, what do I really need? What do I really want?

After the movie was over, it was about seven a.m. and I turned off the television and laid quietly in bed. A soft glow of morning sunshine was peeking out around the edges of the hideous curtains hanging in our bedroom. I have always hated those curtains. Fugly doesn't cover it. I can't tell you how many times, while I was in nursing school, I thought as soon as I have the money, I am buying new curtains. Well, I'm out of school. I can afford those curtains. But do they really matter? I pondered why my husband and I live in a four bedroom home. We could live on less. I started making a list of wants. Here is my list:

I want to want less
I want to live in a smaller place
I want less bills
I want to have a purpose
I want to go places
I want to make a difference
I want to be free of restraint
I want to be conscious
I want to stop living unconsciously

About this time, he woke up and asked me what I was thinking about. Ironically, I was typing up my list of wants on my Blackberry (that I absolutely adore). I showed him the list. We had a long conversation about all of it. From the movie to money to altruistic endeavors. We didn't see eye to eye on everything, but it was therapeutic.

I'm realistic. I will never be some kind of Mother Theresa. I am way too sarcastic for that. However, I do think I can make a difference in my own way. Like everything, it takes a while for plans to come to fruition. But, I surfed the net today looking for opportunities to volunteer and use my skills as a nurse. I may be on to something. Those curtains can wait.