I often wonder why it is that I feel so incomplete. That nagging feeling of emptiness, even after an honest days work and not screaming (a lot) at the kids. Almost exercising. Striving for my dreams. Not illegally downloading the new Justin Timerberlake song. Is that not enough?

It’s not fair really, is it? After all, I’ve checked off everything on the ‘Road to Completion Check List.’

• Education: “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.”
  Dear Oscar Wilde, I disagree on both counts. Regards, Bridgitte B.A.
• Marriage:  “You complete me.” Adam, Eve etc.
• Kids: Reproduce your way to fulfillment in 3 easy kids!

Job. Check.
House. Check.
5G Wireless Wifi Hi-End BlueRay.mpeg4. Check.

…….Error: Not Found 404

In order to soothe the symptoms of incompleteness, there are always a few easy go-to areas to scratch that will always gain you instant, albeit temporary, relief. Spirituality is obviously one of those places. Thousands of years of holy, scholarly insight – surely there must be something in that, right?! Maybe I’ll pop over to the local synagogue. Amen. Boring. Get this thing off my head. Swipe a slice of moist cake on the way out. If I run I can be back in my pajamas slurping the coffee and I left on the kitchen table in less than 5. Good Shabbos and Good Bye.

Ok, how about the arts!? People have spent all eternity expressing their deepest yearnings through art. I am a singer after all. Sing for your supper, sing for your fulfillment? No. Singing is like sex. You gear up to it slowly (=woman), and once you’re in it’s like Woah Nelly this is fun, why don’t we do this more often?! Then it’s over. The itch is scratched and you can either fall asleep or go back to the abundant less-satisfying-than-sex+singing activities that fill our lives. Fun while it lasted, but over until the next time the urge to plug in the microphone comes up. (Enjoy those puns people).

The next few items hold no intrinsic value so I’m just gonna go ahead and plop them all together in one category:

Food. Pop Culture. Shopping. TV Shows. Vacations. Cosmetic surgery. More food. Drinking/Smoking. Internet games/memes/schemes/streams. So on and so forth. Mindless, unconstructive activities that slowly destroy our society yet provide shit loads of distraction from the nagging feeling of emptiness in spite of having it all. I swear, Twitter is the best thing since being born. Twitter allows me to continue as a semi-respected member of the community whilst on the side living out my wildest fantasies of being besties with the likes of @TinaFeyFansclub (one step closer), ‏ @JokesDog (cracks me up!) and @Joan_Rivers  (to die for!!). My Iphone is never out of reach, and therefore neither is my one-sided conversation with @Cher.

I’m middle class, middle aged and wanna give life the middle finger. Yes, that’s right – while millions of our fellow human beings are suffering from real-live-awful-shit, I’ve photo-shopped myself into the picture of the poverty stricken, war-torn town and claim, “Yea, me too. I suffer too.”

To be fair, I have given this a fair amount of thought. I’ve been carrying this around for quite some time now and I’ve done what I feel is a respectable amount of research into the matter. I spent my teenage years deeply absorbed in my boyfriend Camus, Nietzsche, Aristotle and dead celebrity biographies (lots to gain there people). All of my 20’s were spent in a cloud of ancient Jewish texts and long talks with people I will forever be indebted to. Oh, and of course, the predictable next step into Buddism. Who didn’t see that coming? I bore myself.

Everything I’ve mentioned above – it all makes up the current complexion my life. No regrets, no shame. We build upon the past, brick by each colorful brick. So what do you when some bricks are missing? When you look around and see straight through the gaping holes in your house and you realize that whatever you have managed to piece together is just not enough and you’re all out of ideas of where to get new bricks.

You snoop around other peoples houses, that’s what you do! Not just anyone’s houses, mind you, but the houses built by people you have a lot of respect for. People you know personally that blow you away, and people who you have not yet had the great fortune of meeting but it doesn’t matter cause you can find out anything on the internet.

I discovered 2 things by snooping:

1. Nobody’s house is without holes.

2. The bricks that happen to be the exact shape of my gargantuan gaps, are resting snuggly in the houses built by those people who have done good things for other people. Those who are out there DOING something to help improve the lives of others and the world we live in. The boy who competes alongside his paraplegic brother in triathalons. The neighbor who always knows when to bring over that dish that we told her we loved when we were last invited to Friday night dinner. Ellen. Amy Poehler. This woman. That guy.

I don’t have those bricks because I’m so damn caught up in my own nonsense. I don’t deserve those bricks.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t try, right? I can change. I can start now. Not just so that I  can ‘fill my gaps’, but so that it will all have meant something. So that someone else may benefit from all that I’ve been blessed with. It is possible.

Ok, fine, I’m not 100% sure about all this. But from my embarrassingly great distance I can just about approximate that it might work. I could be wrong. They do look heavy, those bricks, don’t they? And where am I gonna get a wheelbarrow to schlep them? And jeez ya know the holes aren’t really that bad unless it rains. But with environmental change and all it could start raining a lot more…so, well….it could be the perfect time to start. I’ll definitely Google it – “How to make a difference.”

Excuse me for a second, my phone is ringing, it could be Cher.