A Fine Frenzy: Faking it through life since the mid 80s

This past weekend we ran into old landlords of ours from back when we lived in the quaint University town where I did my undergrad. We really adore this couple - she works at the only bookstore in town, he the wildlife service. They have kids around our age, and liked to invite us over to their side of the house for tea (we lived in a separate but attached one bedroom apartment). Turns out they purchased a rambling old farm house in an uber-rural area, and are in the process of fixing it up. I admire them so much for taking on that task because they could have easily lived with the status quo. To take on the enormous project of the restoration of an old farm house without a lottery windfall belies a passion I envy.

Their situation got me thinking about how I choose to do the things that I do, especially the perceived risky decisions in life that bring me out of my comfort zone. It ties in closely to a conversation my husband and I had a few weeks ago about selling the house we built over the past year, and moving to a two-room building off the grid somewhere. The most interesting people I have met in my life have, at one time or another, lived off the grid. One of the couples we met through the Landlords raised two small children for five years in a one-room building they maintained in the woods somewhere. They raised chickens and livestock, gardened their veggies, and went into town only once a week for essentials they could not produce themselves. Like, how cool is that? It pulls me very strongly - the idea of self-sustainability and simplicity. Admittedly, there are levels to this idea of off-the-grid living (I would need to have a day job with appropriate wardrobe and a car, so daily trips to the city). The duelling parts of my personality take turns: I LOVE entertaining people in our home, inviting them over for dinner parties where I set the table in matching napkins and dinner plate chargers. The other part of me wants to give away all my crap (like dinner plate chargers) and live in a hobbit house in the side of a hill somewhere. So do we do it? We could certainly try for awhile, and this is the crux: I make many of my decisions based on what I admire in other people, and what they would do in this situation. And the answer is plain: I have already identified the fact that some of the coolest people I've ever known have lived off the grid, therefore I should also, at some point in my life, live off the grid. Basically shaping my identity as an adult based on becoming what I admire most.

Do normal adults make decisions like this? I was unsure of my tattoo because of its permanency but alas every time I saw someone showing off beautiful art on their bodies, I oohh-ed and aahh-ed. I admire those people, I want to be like those people, so I also got a tattoo. When I write it like that, it seems so disingenuous - but honestly, how does one become the type of person one wants to be without first identifying the things that are meaningful to them? In first year undergrad I modeled for a student artist, who made a cast of my entire upper body (naked). When it finally came out among my close friends that yes, indeed, those were my breasts up on display there at the art gallery they couldn't believe it. "Why?" they asked. Because I've always admired people who were free of inhibitions and didn't buy into the bad body image projected by our culture, so it was my attempt at living it. I was not 100% comfortable with it, but it was my attempt at becoming the type of person that was comfortable enough with it. In so doing, I was.

I think.

Am I a big old fake? I can't decide. I don't know if it matters. Who will judge me? Nobody seems to have it figured out perfectly (or if they have, they have yet to share their secrets with me). And until I (or if I ever) change my method of self-examination and action, perhaps I too will be someone's inspiration to live a life outside their comfort zone. To do the daring, even if it feels wobbly.