My Ideal Self
Where is she?
When my mother was ill and going through treatment, she exclaimed, that once she gets well, she is going to change her lifestyle. By lifestyle, she meant, her style. She would wear trousers and tops, I guessed, not salwar kameez as her usual. I don’t know what I thought at that time. Did the cynic in me think that she might never get well or did the hopeful in me say that start now, don’t wait. My mother passed, without having the chance of changing her lifestyle.
This memory dictates or guides how I make every choice in my life. Some of us who have experienced death of our really close ones know how not to waste a single moment, how to never take some of these little joys for granted and how tomorrow might never come- all we have is today. The ideal self that we are waiting to become, is actually, possibly with us all through out.
I also have an ideal self. I have always had an ideal self. She is somebody who lives in my mind in the present but is actually nowhere to be found in real life- whatever ‘real’ means. My ideal self is a morning person, goes to the beach for a run- not walk- in comfortable shorts and shoes that she is not lazy to put on. She gets home and enjoys her breakfast and sweet milk tea and starts work. She works undisturbed and focused for five hours straight in which she writes and reads and creates some wonderful ways of communicating what she has just found out. She is probably writing a book or preparing for a lecture. She has students who love her, two cats that keep her company and spends time in the evenings on some hobbies. My ideal self doesn’t apply for jobs or projects, they just come to her. My ideal self is also a little less inhibited and on the spectrum of introvertedness and extrovertedness, is a little bit more towards, uncaring. My ideal self, who I long to be, is someone, who has no longings. She is done. She has got what she has always wanted and is now content.
When will that ideal self come to life, I wonder. When will I write more? When will I be read more? When will I go out all dressed up every day and use up my stuff? When will I have biceps?
While I was thinking all this, I looked down at my table and saw the bag that I just completed making last night- only straps are left to be attached. I had just quilted a complementary shopping bag with an old canvas tote and made myself a floral tote bag that I have been wanting since 2023. I just lifted 5 kgs dumbbells 12 times. I had my most favourite breakfast i.e. eggs sunny side up in butter with salt, pepper and cheese with two or three gently toasted bread slices and sweet milk tea. I was already there. Parts of my ideal self were already there.