Is it just me? That thought occurs to me every time I sit down to write about my quirks and foibles, my challenges and insecurities—my “issues.” I’ve got “issues,” y’all. And as is often the case, song lyrics help bring them into the light so that I can look at them and myself, if not objectively, then at least more compassionately. After all, if someone else has felt this way—especially if that someone else is James Taylor, then maybe I’m not a freak after all. Or if I am, then I’m in really cool company.
Monday morning, I posted a line on Facebook from an obscure JT song:
“I’m running short of things to be, and sunshine means quite a lot to me…”
I have a three ring binder that stays in my car and holds nothing but James Taylor CD’s. Yes, CD’s. Remember those? These days, they are more often used as coasters, or, I noticed, this weekend at the marina, as shiny reflectors hanging from fishing line to keep the birds away. But I use them as originally intended, to pour music into my head. I love my CD’s, as old-fashioned as they are. I need my JT to be in the proper sequence, as “shuffling” distresses me. I know every word to every song on every CD, and I sing the whole LP as though it were one long song. “Machine Gun Kelly” has to come after “You Can close Your Eyes.” “Carolina in My Mind,” after “Sunshine, Sunshine.”
The lyrics I posted Monday, come from that song, “Sunshine, Sunshine,” on his 1968 debut studio album entitled, James Taylor. He may have been a teenager when he wrote that song, as he was just 20 when the album was released. So, how the hell did he know at 20 or younger what I’m feeling at 58? Ah, the miracle of music, his music specifically.
“I’m running short of things to be, and sunshine means quite a lot to me…”
Now, everyone who knows me, either personally, or through Facebook, or even from reading my memoir, knows that “sunshine means quite a lot to me.” I rise every morning before dawn to await the sunrise. I’ve probably posted 500 photos of the breaking dawn. I love nothing more than combing the beach for seashells on a sunny day. I make my home on a bright white sandbar in the Sunshine State. Yes, everyone knows that sunshine means quite a lot to me.
But nobody knows, till now, that I so often feel like “I’m running short of things to be.” Maybe that’s the reason I’m so obsessed with sunrises: a glorious new start every single day, at being. Just being. And that, if looked at from the right perspective, should feel like a glorious privilege, not this quandary that is beginning to feel like a burden.
Because, I remember, all too well, the exhausting other end of this spectrum of “being.” As a young mother especially. There was no wondering about who I would be on any given day—I would be mom. Mom. MOM!!! And a wife, and a friend, and a daughter and a sister, and an employee, and if I had even a split second left over, I’d be just Sharla. But that usually only happened for a couple of minutes behind a bathroom door with my sweatpants around my ankles, while the boys shoved “notes” under the door. Ha!
Even in my long career as a flight attendant, my purpose seemed evident—I needed to support myself. From my late teens to early 30’s, I was my sole provider. My job was my primary purpose—and before that my education, and before that, well, before that I got to be a little kid who lived under the umbrella of my parents’ purpose.
And now, they are both gone. I helped care for them in their final years, and again, as challenging as those long goodbyes were for me, my purpose was clear.
My boys are both grown, and though they say a parent’s job is never done, I feel that my role has flip-flopped with them both. I’m not being idealistically sentimental when I say that, at this point, I learn more from them than they learn from me.
So here I am—seemingly “running short of things to be”—not a full-time student, or a career woman, or a mommy, or a care-giver. And it dawns on me, maybe it’s time for me to stop searching for “things” to be, and just “be.”
And that seems ridiculous and reductive even as I typed it—a little too “woo-woo” even for me. BE HERE NOW, and all that. Of course I’m here now. Where else could I be?
Well, turns out, I can be almost anywhere but “here now” if I don’t make a very conscious effort to get out of my head, and my to-do lists, and my own rather arbitrary agendas and pay attention what is actually going on around me.
And it occurs to me in this moment, as I type these words, that perhaps my purpose at this juncture in my life is to be the dreaded “floater.”
I hated being assigned that position on the airplane when I was a flight attendant. I really hated it. I like for my duties to be specific and predictable—neatly delineated on company letterhead in the 30-3’s (the rigorously updated procedural guidelines we were obliged to follow). Tell me what to do, and I will do it. But don’t make me guess. Should I be pouring coffee in Economy right now, or helping the Chief Purser with documentation, or closing out the liquor carts in Business, or heaven forbid, helping a passenger? Ha! I never felt like I was doing the right thing, or doing enough, despite the fact that I never stopped moving.
Hmmm. That’s the way I so often feel today. I wake up praying to “be of use”—but without 30-3’s I feel adrift. Floating uselessly in space like a mylar balloon that has escaped a child’s grasp. I once belonged to something, now I’m just drifting off, uselessly, it seems. 
So, I asked God for some 30-3’s this morning. Yes, I did. On my knees actually. I prayed for the “knowledge of His will, and the power to carry that out,” and then I went downstairs to get my coffee. And there on the couch in the dim pre-dawn light, I saw that someone small was sleeping. A dear young woman, Myles’ close friend, and one of my very favorite people in the world, was curled up under the blankets, resting fitfully. I tip-toed back upstairs, and when I came back down she was awake, swollen-eyed and weary.
And we talked. That’s all. We sat on the couch, side by side, as the sun rose, and talked about hard stuff, and cried a little, and I poured her some coffee, and we sat together. I wish I could say that I had some sage advice to offer, or at least some hopeful suggestions. But mostly I just listened, mostly I was just there.
Mostly I just floated.
Perhaps I am a floater now. It is both a luxury and a challenge. Luxurious, because I am blessed, at this phase of my life, with the time and resources to move more slowly and with more awareness than when the kids were little, or when I was working outside the home full time, or even when my parents were sick. But it is also very challenging for someone like me—who loves me some 30-3’s. I have a daytimer—the old-fashioned spiral-bound “AT-A-GLANCE” paper variety that I scribble in all week. I derive great, albeit fleeting, satisfaction from slashing through line items with a really sharp pencil.
Atop today’s list—March 1st, 2017—is “Post blog story.” 8:00 AM was my deadline—my own “rather arbitrary agenda” and time frame. 
It is 11:30 now.
I’m still floating.
I could get used to this.
Perhaps I should get used to this.
Starting this month, I’m going to post new material on the first Wednesday of the month only. I may re-post previously published stories by request on subsequent Wednesdays, but new stories will come out on the first Wednesday. I need to be working on various marketing aspects of my first book, and I’d really like to get a start on my second!
My new book, My Vices Collide: A Celebration of Being a Little Messed Up, is still available from this website–Shop–(most economical), on Amazon.com, and from any of these gracious local retailers:
At the beach:
Geronimo’s Outpost
69 Via DeLuna Dr.
Pensacola Beach, FL 32561
(850) 435-9555
In Gulf Breeze:
Pizzazz
832 Gulf Breeze Parkway
(Publix shopping center)
Gulf Breeze, FL 32561
(850) 934-3436
In East Hill:
Angel’s Garden
1208 N. 12th Ave.
Pensacola, FL 32503
(850) 435-9555
Downtown:
Urban Objects
128 Palafox Place
Pensacola, FL 32502
(850) 912-8683
Mall area:
Miles Antique Mall
(at the front register)
5109 Bayou Blvd.
Pensacola, FL 32503
(850) 607-6560