Jane Austen Strikes Fear

I watched a OPB special this evening. It is a Masterpiece series on Jane Austen and her works. Tonight happened to be, "Miss Austen Regrets". And OH how depressing. She dies, and there remains in her, till the end, the conflict of freedom vs. attachment, marriage.

My roommates commented on how much I reminded them of her, not necessarily of her brilliance in writing, but of her propensity to flirt shamelessly with ridicules crushes and to use humor as a defense. I have this grip of fear in my gut when I hear things like that. Anything that attaches me to anything I don't want to be makes me incredibly nervous. Somehow I think that the mere suggestion might make it so. It's like when you were making faces as a child and someone said that your face would become stuck there if you sneeze (or whatever it was that they said to get you to stop). I feel like people have power over my future sometimes when they compare. Silly I know, but true nonetheless.

I have yet to learn that I am the one with the power in my own life. You wouldn't think it so hard for a woman of almost thirty to figure that out. And yet I still wonder who will say that magic word that will turn me from an ugly duckling to a swan. That moment when someone will hear me singing and call for me to let down my hair.

I was thinking about living in the present moment today. Something I am not good at, at all. I was thinking of what it would be like to finally have the opportunity to live where I want to be right now. I wondered if I would ever be satisfied with the present. I think one must become comfortable within their own present state before they ever become comfortable with being in a moment with anyone else.

The wisest, most profound and powerful people I have met are people who live their lives in such moments. The mundane moments, the exciting moments, the sorrowful ones, as well as the joyful. Here they live. Experiencing the fullness of life, while I just wish and pine for something better. These are the people that scare me. The ones that can look the moment dead in the eye and embrace it. Cherish it. Put it in their pocket and carry it, fingering it from time to time. Moving from one to another with grace and ease, with poise and confidence.

Jane Austen strikes fear in me, because I fear that I am like her. I think she created people and moments in her head that never had the chance to walk off the page.