What Really is Passion and Do I Have It?

When a friend suggested I write a column about passion, I laughed and looked at his wife, because she knows how confused I am about it. And no, he was not talking about sex. He was talking about that quality that makes some people leap out of bed every morning like it's the first day of their lives.

Since I am incapable of mental or physical sensation before seven a.m., I'm not one of those people. I unfold and crawl out of my warm womb-nest, but only after draining the lethargy from me and stretching every sedated muscle. In fact, I am not a leaper at any time of the day about anything really.

Which has caused me to wonder: Do I have passion or don't I?

For the friend who posed this topic to me, passion is something he never had until 10 years ago, when he got his first whiff of something he realized he wanted. During a vacation, he found himself on a boat off the coast of Florida and thought, "This is what I want someday."

Although he wasn't sure what "this" would be, he was sure he wanted to be on the water as much as possible. Four years ago, at 69, he retired, settled in Southwest Florida fulltime, and founded the first continuing longterm study of bottlenose dolphins in the region. Now, he jumps out of bed every day at five a.m. like a child on Christmas morning.

But what about people like me, who are not so much zestful about something as they are chronically pestered by it?

I became interested in writing when I was about 12, but I wasn't a gifted English student. Two big red Fs are emblazoned on my memory--along with a below average English SAT score. In college I floundered from one major to the next, never considering journalism; I assumed I wasn't good enough to be a writer. But privately I wrote poems and songs and novels I never finished, because of something inside of me that would not quit.

After college I flirted at the shallow fringes of the writing world, too afraid to dive headfirst into the deep end. First I worked for public relations firms and then for a film producer as a script reader.

To test the water a little further, when I was 24 I took a job as an editorial assistant for a small magazine here in Naples, Florida, eventually going on to became an editor and writer for various Florida lifestyle publications.

But during those years I felt an unceasing ache inside of me that said this wasn't the kind of writing I wanted to do.

The problem was, I wasn't sure what kind of writing I wanted to do. By the time I was 45 I had started but not finished 12 novels, as well as submitted 21 essays to my local newspaper, all of which were rejected. The longer I witnessed my creative writing going unpublished the more I doubted my ability.

And then I got a vision of myself at 80, full of regret for having never taken a chance on one of my dreams. The pain was so wrenching I made a promise to myself: I would write and finish a novel no matter how awful I thought it was. So I did, and then I re-wrote it five times before sending it out to agents and other writers, who told me to rewrite it again. And I have.

The latest agent called it "competent", so maybe there is hope, which I'll need to get through re-write number 12.

In the mean time, that nagging ache flared up, so I queried my local newspaper again. And now this column is published there.

As terrified as I am to be swimming in something that sometimes feels like the middle of an ocean I am grateful, because that haunting feeling isn't there anymore.

Maybe that means I'm doing what I need to do, at least for now. I do know I have a sense of contentment about this part of my life that I haven't felt before.

And although every time I sit in front of my computer I worry I'll have nothing to say, a small voice inside of me keeps urging me on, telling me not to give up.

Not even on that silly novel.

I guess that is passion.

QUESTION: Are you passionate about something and, if so, how are you honoring it?

(Not sure how to leave your name or pseudonym with your comment?  See above left.)

Me, Rigid?

A thin line separates self-care from selfishness, and I wonder if sometimes I have unwittingly crossed it by digging in my heals over things that no longer serve me.

Such as where to sit on an airplane.

I don't remember when I concluded, “I must sit in an aisle seat”. Maybe it was when I started drinking two liters of water everyday. Or when I decided I wanted to be able to exit an airplane as quickly as possible when we landed--or if we crashed. That's the optimist in me. Or pessimist. I'm not sure which.

I hadn't thought about it until a friend told me about something that happened on her honeymoon. It got her wondering if her own heel digging might be self-care gone petrified.

Or, as she calls it, rigidity.

“I thought it might be a good topic for your column,” she said. But I had a feeling it was her way of saying we might have this affliction in common.

My friend confessed that her do-not-cross boundary when it comes to air travel happens to be the window seat, and when she and her new husband boarded the airplane on their honeymoon a 12-year-old boy was sitting in her seat—until she told him otherwise.

“Did you just make that little boy move?” her groom said.

Of course my friend, who's really a softie, felt like an ogre. So as soon as the “fasten seat belt” sign went off, she asked the boy if he wanted the window seat, and he said he did, so she gave it to him. Now, she says, she's working on loosening her clinch on her boundaries.

But we have to be aware of our boundaries to know if we are being too rigid with them, and it wasn't so long ago that I was oblivious to many of mine until somebody stumbled over one, at which point I realized, Ouch!

Or Ick. As in the case of my first blind date. I was a freshman in college and he was a famous Big 10 football player. He wasn't typically my type but he was attractive in a big, strong guy sort of way—and he wore a jacket and tie and took me to an expensive restaurant with candlelight and white tablecloths and matching napkins.

But he did something I would have never thought to put on my “do not cross this line” list until I had actually experienced it. A waiter brought a telephone to our table with what must have been a 30-foot cord—it was pre-cell phone 1978. And as the diamond chunk in his left earlobe sparkled like the shining star I thought he was, my date dipped his napkin into his water glass, wiped the sides of his nostrils, and proceeded to make bets with his bookie.

So that's how I learned about boundaries initially—by experiencing someone doing something I found disrespectful and respecting myself enough not to put myself in the situation again. But there were other boundaries I set then erased for fear of disappointing others. Until I began this column, I had difficulty telling people I was unavailable during the times I reserved for writing. Because I wasn't yet published, I thought they wouldn't understand why I chose writing over being with them.

And then someone said, “If you don't take your writing seriously why would anyone else?”

It was a needed reality check: I teach others how to treat me by how I treat myself.

Sometimes I still feel guilty over some boundaries I set, but I'm working on that—on shaking off the untruth that says love requires giving even when I bleed. It's okay to say no if I believe the giving will hurt.

Thanks to my friend, I now know I also need to re-evaluate my boundaries once in a while. Instead of setting them globally or for a lifetime, it's better to be open and flexible. I am growing and changing, so it's only natural that my boundaries should, too.

As for the next time I fly, I plan to request an aisle seat but I won't be as rigid about it, in case someone else needs it more.

Like a 12-year-old boy.

Or somebody who drinks more water than me.

QUESTION: What, if any, boundaries are you holding onto that no longer serve you?

(Not sure how to leave your name or pseudonym with your comment?  See the post above left.)