How Should a Person Be?

The title of this post comes from Sheila Heti's novel, that I downloaded onto my new kobo and have been reading since we left the desert.

Her novel is making me feel less alone, less strange, less like a failure.

Maybe everyone feels a little like a failure, but probably not. E doesn`t. And he doesn`t think about meaning. I asked him, 'What makes your life meaningful,' and he said, 'I don`t think like that.'

Whenever I try to talk to him, that is the kind of response I get. He is perfect, has done everything he ever wanted to, doesn't have any regrets, and doesn't think about the future, beyond planning for his perfect children's perfect lives.

I can't talk to anyone else because they are all busy.

It is difficult to find kindred souls, and I do believe in them. My daughter is one, but she`s still a kid.

So . . . where does that leave me? I talk to my 7-year-old. Our conversations sometimes make sense, but often are so clogged in make-believe they don't make any sense at all.

Most of what I think doesn't make any sense either, so we're okay.

I just lost the rest of my post . . . about how you can worry about how you should be only when you have the luxury of time that allows you to do so. With kids, that vanishes. All you can worry about . . . is how to make it through the day, or week, or summer, or school year, or childhood.

That`s the next movie I want to see - Childhood.

We saw Palo Alto  in the desert. It felt like a movie about living in the desert.

I think the desert is easier to live in than the wilderness. There is less to attend to.

How should I be? Apparently, according to the signs I`ve been seeing, I should be nothing much of anything at all . . . the universe keeps shutting doors. Bam! Not for you. Bam! Sorry! Bam! Think of something else.

Funny that Heti`s mind never goes that way . . . her gripes are with others. She knows she's right where she should be.