my Average Life

One thing should be established before we move on. My life is good, as far as lives go: sweet husband, solid job, nice apartment, and a great family. For the most part, I really like being me. Average, yes, but I like it that way. The predictability and relative ease of it is a good fit for me.

However, I suspect that part of my soul is off living a double life without me, probably in Greenwich Village or some little coastal town in Italy.

This secret side of my soul is staying up until 3 a.m. writing poetry or drawing or painting, discussing literature with writers and other artists, sleeping in until noon, and going to art galleries and shows in the evening. This is my "inner artist" and I can't stop it from wondering and fantasizing about the carefree lifestyle I've just described. Much like Edna St. Vincent Millay when she was in Greenwich Village...minus all the sex and drugs and chronic anxiety.
(But can you really have that life without the dysfunction? The pleasure without the pain? Popular theory is that you can't. The whole point of that lifestyle is to ride on the cusp of chaos.) So I leave it alone and stick with what I know: simple and average and content.

However-

I met a girl who embodies this imaginary side of my soul. We used to work together, that's how we met, but that was over a year ago. We haven't seen each other at all since then. Odd thing is, I didn't realize she was the embodiment of the untapped portion of my soul until months and months after I left that job. We never talked about it, we never really talked at all, so she has no idea and never will. We're friends on Facebook, but that's meaningless, really. There are people that I can't stand being around and they're my "friends" on Facebook.

Through Facebook, though, I found her blog. This is embarrassing to admit but...

I'm blog-stalking her.

She's a good writer. She reads books the way I eat food or drink water. She knows things that I wish I knew: memorable lines from great written works, names of people from historical and current politics, tenets of eastern philosophy and religion. I haven't dabbled in any of these things, but I wish I knew something about them.

(I can't believe how confidently I'm writing all this...she'll know it's her if she reads this. But here's the thing: I know that she will never, never read this because I never, never cross her mind. Never.)

My inner artist wishes I could trade places with her. The rest of me, however, knows better. I don't really want her life and she wouldn't want mine. I don't fit in that world, I don't fit with those people, and the greater part of me recognizes this. Yet she still fascinates me and I still watch her through sporadic blog posts and Facebook updates.
Admittedly, the fascination has died down some in recent weeks. Maybe I'll finally break free from whatever holds me in her wake. Deep down I can still feel my inner artist sleepily pondering her life and dreaming of its taste. But I know I wouldn't find happiness there. So I comfortably sink deeper into my own average life and I feel a wrenching pain -- my inner artist is dying, day by day, one small piece at a time.