Guilty as charged

Apparently I am a huge slacker and don't update my blog ever.

Its fine though I just discovered that my boyfriend reads it maybe once a month so I am guessing perhaps that the rest of you, my lovely readers might be sporadic blog checkers also.

That is fine with me because then I feel less guilty when I don't get a chance to write as much. Which is a convenient segway into my new buzzword. A word that has been used in my life frequently lately and encompasses the much broader concept of....

wait for it....

GUILT.

Oh yea. I went there. I was curious as to the actual definition of the word and apparently to Mr. Webster it means :

"the state of one who has committed an offense especially consciously b : feelings of culpability especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy."

I don't know if it is just me but that definition makes absolutely no sense. I went to college and everything and I have no idea what that definition means. But I certainly know all about some down home good old fashioned guilt.

I don't even know where it came from or how it happens but there you are sitting there feeling badly and second guessing yourself for something or other.

For example I have felt very guilty about leaving my current job because my employers have been amazing to me and have in actually treated me more like family then someone who just works for them. I kind of feel like I am abandoning them and leaving them stranded, and perhaps I suffer from delusions that they will be lost without me (which they will) and won't be able to replace me (which they will).

Then there is also all kinds of family guilt. It never feels good to be very far away from your family but sometimes maybe that is just the next step in life. I can't really picture my parents, Jon Greene, Gus and I in an 'Everybody Loves Raymond" -esque scenario but it would be nice to at least live within driving distance. Also, a certain beloved member of the Greene clan has a penchant for the melodramatic and knows how to instill little shots of guilt that you don't even realize are there until they hit you randomly while you are reaching for your last diet coke can or watching yet another re-run of the Nanny. Out of nowhere you think....

"crap! maybe I shouldn't have done *insert guilty conscience driven offense here*"

Sometimes I try to be more like my brother and be impervious to guilt trips. You cannot shame Jon Greene into anything. He is simply bullet proof against it. He smiles his goofy smile and moves on accepting that it is not in his nature to please everyone all the time he merrily goes on his way.

I am so jealous of him. Ugh.

When you set yourself up to be everything to everyone you are without a doubt going to fail and it is at that point that your mother threatens to drink herself to death, or your boss reminds you gently about the endless supply of bacon they have provided over the years, or your boyfriend accuses you of not letting your bunny out to reek mayhem on your small cottage enough.

Then the guilt kicks in. I suppose other people either have stronger defenses or simply choose to ignore that nagging feeling that something is amiss. Is it the Catholic in me that embraces the guilt? The mom voice in my head that never quite goes away? What drives the guilt?

I tell you it is maddening.

It would be very selfish to just go through life not caring about what impact the decisions you made had on yourself and those around you, but somehow other people like stupid Jon Greene manage to make decisions and then embrace them never second guessing or questioning their actions. They made the call and they live with it. Those people are my hero's.

In choosing to make this big next step I have suffered many feelings of guilt, leaving my friends some of whom are going through big transitions in theirs lives too, leaving my family who as we speak are looking for a car big enough to fit 3 grown ups in the back seat because they just want us all to be comfortable, leaving my company which is on the verge of either real greatness or utter failure.

So. Much. Guilt.

I just have to pull a Miles Davis and 'rise above it'. At the end of the day it is my life after all. Friends are going to grow up and away, my family will always support me regardless, and Williamsburg Occasions will survive without me around. It will be o.k. Life will carry on and me sitting around over analyzing it to death will do nothing but give me a tummy ache and a forehead wrinkle.

I suppose you have to carry a little bit of guilt around with you just so that you don't go crazy and start disappointing people and hurting feelings but just a little bit. It certainly should never stop you from making bold choices even if they don't always work out.

I am going to try to be better about seeing life as the big picture and in giving up that control hopefully the rest of the little details will figure themselves out in due time. After all I can't control them and worrying about them wont solve anything.

Less guilt more glee says I!

Then when I find myself beginning to feel that old familiar nagging twinge I will just say to myself W.W.J.G.D and I will smile a goofy smile and carry on secure in my convictions and happy with myself :)

I will keep you posted on how well that turns out... methinks it might be easier said than done.