Seals Can Do That

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I sit on an exercise ball when I write.  They are cheaper than chairs, they supposedly work your core, they discourage slouching (though I manage), and they are super fun.  One day I was sitting on my ball, with writer's block, and I thought to myself, "I think seals can walk on balls. Seals have flippers.  Legs are better at walking than flippers.  I should be able to walk on my ball well enough to move around the room."  Figuring that bipedal walking may be a tall order, I endeavored to crawl on my exercise ball to move around the room.

One of the tricks to this hobby is that you move in the opposite direction as you crawl, i.e. crawling forwards makes the ball roll backwards.  Obviously, rolling in the direction you are looking is easier, but crawling backwards is actually quite cumbersome, especially on top of an exercise ball.  While practicing, cursing my horrible balance, I realized that seals do not walk on balls, but balance balls on their noses.  While this seems more reasonable, it also seems boring, so I persevered with the crawling.

I can now roll forwards, backwards and side-to-side with reasonable grace.  I am having a difficult time with turning, but I think it will come with practice.  Unfortunately, crawling around my living room on a ball is only fun for so long, and I had reached that point.  Luckily, Sarah showed up with her exercise ball, that she sits on to write.  Rolling evolved to battles.

Battling on a ball is a short lived game, where the objective is to knock the other from their ball.  After a great deal of giggling, postulating rules and objectives, and comically falling off of balls, I was reminded of an xkcd where a stick figure fills her(?) apartment with play-pen balls (http://xkcd.com/150/).  The idea in this comic is that as "grown-ups" we get to decide what it means to be grown-ups.

It seems that I should start deciding what it means to be grown-up.  I look at the traditional model; marriage, house, car, dog, kids, etc., and while there are certainly aspects of that life that are at times appealing (owning a home), I don't want it, and I don't know if I ever did.  Many of the decisions I have made in my life have been based on what other people define as being an adult.  For example, my brother and his wife have a house, steady jobs, and a cat.  I am thankful for their stability (and generosity), as I relied on them for support during my divorce.  The stability they have, and I do not, often makes me feel like I am not grown-up.  That I have a facade of age, but I am unchanging, repeating the same mistakes, and an ever bigger fraud.

Obviously, I need to redefine what it means to be a grown-up for me.  The life I most want is not the life of a "grown-up," but is the life that suits me.  I want a ball-pit (actually I don't, but metaphorically) because it will be fun for me.  I want to live life without a track, and I do not want the interview-question cliched five-year plan.  Where do I see myself in five years?  Hopefully doing something interesting and fun, and that is it.  Maybe I will start answering interview questions that way.  Even if I do not, I can plan to not-plan my life.

How does a not-plan work in the marriage model, it did not seem to.  When I look back at my marriage, we (I?) never really seemed to like the forever concept.  Our wedding bands were two small bands side-by-side to represent that we were two people, living two lives, that touched closely and always.  While some may view this as a poor take on marriage, it should be noted that many works of science fiction have marriage as fixed-term contracts, and Mexico City is, apparently, considering adopting some form of this to curb divorce rates.  In the end, Corinne wanted more than two lives touching, with a stable future, with kids and white picket fences separating her from the world.  I wanted the world (and her as my partner to explore it).

I was recently asked if coming to New Zealand was a way for me to heal from my divorce.  Maybe it was.  Maybe though, my divorce was a way to heal from my marriage.  Maybe my definition of being a grown-up is  living the life that comes to me, experiencing love and loss, and following the whims of my wandering mind.

In this, I am reminded of Dr. Who.  The Doctor does not plan his voyages through time and space (in fact it seems he cannot).  While some writers suggest that this is The Doctor's choice, it often seems like chaos is the nature of the fabric of space and time that the TARDIS travels upon.  While The Doctor is frequently haunted by lonely spells, and guilt over the risk he exposes his companions to, he does choose to continue to experience whatever lies outside his blue box.

In my definition of being a grown-up, I will decide that it means knowing the consequences of experiencing an awfully big world, with companions that may come and go, but will always be a part of you.  I will loose people who are close to me as they grow-up more traditional ways, but they probably have not ever battled for the infinite glory of finding brief happiness in an exercise ball battle...

And, even a seal can do that.