Excuse Me... Mr. Campbell? Do You Etch-A-Sketch?

I've dedicated my life to following my inner guidance. I call it my little voice. It's not that I literally hear a voice; rather, I get a sense of what I'm supposed to do in my life. Sometimes it's just the sense that I'm no longer supposed to be doing what I'm doing, that it's time to move on.

A few years ago, I got the sense that it was time to move on. In fact, the feeling was so intense I thought I was either going to die (I did become quite ill.) or physically move to a new locale. (I have more than a few half-packed boxes stuffed in my closet.) The problem is even now I still have no sense of direction. Though my little voice has made it clear it's time for me to pack up and go, she has yet to provide me with a destination.

If I was having this chat with Joseph Campbell, I'm more than certain he would advise me to follow my bliss. Well, Mr. Campbell, first I have to find it! My personal experience with bliss is that it can be a state of consciousness (which I have witnessed in others but have been unable to maintain in myself) or it can be a transitory elusive sudden sky-opens-up-light-streams-through-bells-ring-everything-is-beautiful-in-this-moment sort of thing. I have had those moments. Many times. Lots of them. Here's my problem, Mr. Campbell: When I take all these blissful moments and add them together, they don't seem to equal anything; they don't appear to illuminate any sort of path.

I used to have a life, a path, a direction. (I did.) And now I don't.

Remember Etch-A-Sketch? Life seemed more simple then. A few turns of the knobs this way and that and you created a picture. If you didn't like the picture, you simply shook the screen and it was blank again. I have done that with my life over and over. But now... Now I sit and stare at the blank screen that is me. Perhaps it sounds cool to some. I suppose, in a way, it is cool. I AM FREE TO CHOOSE! [Insert image of me standing on top of a mountain shouting and listening to my words echoing back at me.] But choosing can be difficult. And I find myself waiting. Just waiting. Waiting for a sign. Waiting for inspiration. Waiting for the sound of my little voice. Waiting to be sure. And then? And nothing. Nothing except Joseph Campbell, "Follow your bliss." Nothing except the blank screen and the waiting and the sense that it is time. (And of course the urge to pack more boxes.)

Yesterday I was a college professor. (Shake the screen.) Today I am not.

Yesterday I was a day younger. Today I am not.

Yesterday an Etch-A-Sketch life seemed possible. Today? Well, Mr. Campbell, today is a different day.