The Future

I have recently taken a break from creating art. Before that, I took a break from midwifery. I was a little burnt out to be quite honest, first of midwifery and then of art. I generally pour myself out completely into whatever it is I am doing at the moment and quickly become spent and empty with no more to give. This is wonderful, if you plan to only do something for the short-term, however, this is not an ideal way to work if you plan on long-term success. This is where I am at the moment: learning how to pace myself. I think I was born with too many options, too many desires. Is this possible? I need 12 lifetimes in order to truly accomplish all that I want to accomplish, and yet I have one. One lifetime, and I am in the middle of it. So, how then to I succeed in this one lifetime that I have been given? Surely it is not to break myself into 10, 000 pieces and pass out a little here and there, because this is not effective. I need to concentrate and focus on one, maybe two ideas. I am in love with art, and equally I am in love with midwifery. I want to be able to use both mediums to help women and children world-wide, but as of yet, have not found how exactly to be successful at both in the same time. This leads me to where I/we are currently in our lives. I say our, because my husband and I are fiercely committed to one another's goals and hopes, ideas and dreams for the future. He will be completing his PhD within the year (in sha'a Allah). This means, and has always meant, in our minds, that we would then be moving on from this current location, indeed it meant that we would be moving back to Africa. That was always the goal. He to become skilled and degreed in the knowledge of international development, and I in midwifery then, together with the boys, we would return to help women and children in Africa and the Middle East. But now, it all seems so vague, so blurred. The future, that is. There is a part of us that is tired, tired of moving, tired of pouring out, just plain tired of it all. For once in my life I want a new couch, not one that has been handed down then handed down to me. I want to look through catalogues and buy new clothes, not ones from the Goodwill. I have always wanted to buy, whatever it was at the moment, as cheap as possible so that I could then have money to help others in far away places, whose faces I most likely will never see, but now? Now I want to stay in one place and have nice things. Is that so wrong? And then, just as I reconcile myself to this greedy me, and resign myself to think perhaps we just need to get normal jobs and lead normal lives I am convicted. I could no more be happy or content with material possessions or living in one place as a fish on land. So, here I sit at the crossroads of life, waiting to hear that voice behind me saying, "this is the way, walk in it"- yet, silence echoes in my ears and I am lost. What does the future hold? Endless possibilities.