Two years down memory's blind lane

(End of year 2004…this is what I was writing. Did I find it… Life?)
The little things that make life.
The early morning alarm on your cellphone that you can so easily avoid by forgetting to keep the phone next to you. Feeding the fish, which refuses to recognise you no matter how many times you say "here, fishy fishy fishy". The maid who comes in late despite daily screamings and daily apologies. And then there is office.

Leaves me quite bewildered at times -- where do I figure?

Am I the homemaker who has to keep everything in working order -- I fail desperately at keeping the rooms clean, no matter how hard I try, whenever anyone comes home, the standard line, a remnant of my wild-er child days, is still , "Sorry the room's in a mess."

Or the professional who has her work filed neatly into separate folders and can rattle ideas and stories and numbers without a moment's notice? The state of the desk does not hamper efficiency at work (or at home).

There are days when after a hard day's work at office, a hard evening's work at home — I either don’t want to go to work or don’t want to come back home and work. And that’s when I wonder if life was not much better when our mothers and aunts were considered extremely efficient if they had given birth to a couple of kids and brought them up well.

And then there are the (supposed?) big things in life.

The ambition. Do I regret it? Wanting to be a home maker and a good worker at the same time? Not one bit, just that it can be tiring at times. I want to run a smooth house and I want to be darned good at my work. I want that spotlight to be on me, I want to earn it. I want people to say that my brownies are the gooiest they have ever had and I want people to know that my work cannot be duplicated. I want it all.

I hunger for my place in the sun. I have nothing against those who just want to lead a decent life and be happy. But I want to lead a decent life, be happy, get famous, go places, be someone. I am very aware that without winning any award too, all of us have our designated niches in life.... but hell, I want to carve my niche... in stone.....

Why am I rambling about niche and a place under the spotlight? Because now I have been given the opportunity... and it is scaring me. What if I cannot? Will this opportunity — like my attempts at keeping a "neat" living room -- be a failure? Hell, my living room is messy because i like a place to look "lived in" (my favourite reasoning). But this is the Big O. I NEED it. I WANT it. I will GET it. Someone close says she can’t understand me at times — how I can love pottering away with my plants and burn with a desire to be someone at the same time. "How do you manage to think of owning the world when you are romping in your dangris?"

Because that is just me. Perhaps it is unreal to want it all. Sometimes it scares me too (like now) --- will I be on my deathbed and think, oh but I could have done that? Or will it be the other way round -- "I wish I had not wanted it all and concentrated on one small thing." But then who says you cant do it all -- or almost all? And who decides what is the small thing or the big thing in life? I want life!