Where is the Passion?

I miss my 20 year old self. I miss the passion I felt for so many things. I felt so strongly about the environment, teaching, reading, poetry, writing, ecofeminism, learning . . . I was driven to think and discuss ideas, all the time. Now, although I still believe in and love those things, I've lost my passion. This recognition has come about because I came across a fantastic new blog called "Our Mother's Keeper" which is a "LDS group blog dedicated to environmentalism, ecofeminism and environmental justice issues that result from the changes the planet is currently undergoing." It's brilliant and everything I wished I had 20 years ago. It looks like it's a forum handcrafted for me; yet I find myself feeling like it's a place where I don't belong, because I've settled in my middle class life and can't find the passion to share my ideas and ideals any more. I have misplaced the "ecofreak" (a term of endearment from my father). I'm not sure anyone would look at me and think I was an ecofreak today. That saddens me.

The depression is not the culprit of this loss of passion, because I was depressed when I was 20. I was depressed and passionate. There's a great line from a poem called "Self Portrait" by Mary Oliver (yes, more from Mary; isn't it obvious that I've just recently found her work?). Its opening line is:

I wish I was twenty and in love with life
and still full of beans.

I think that's so awesome. The best part about it is the ending line:

though I'm not twenty
and won't be again but ah! seventy. And still
in love with life. And still
full of beans.

My sorrow comes from the fact that I'm forty (and then some) but I'm not sure I'm still in love with life. What has happened to that idealist who cried at the site of ORV tracks across the desert; who signed petitions and lobbied at Capitol Hill for the sake of the voiceless, for the sake of the earth? Where is the idealist who wanted to save the whales and the plants and went out of her way to not step on cryptogamic soil? Maybe I'm remembering myself wrong, maybe I never really was any of those things. Maybe my passion wasn't as deep-rooted as I thought it was. But maybe I'm right. If I am right, then the passion still must be there, somewhere, lying in wait, on slow burn, waiting to be reignited. I hope so, I hope I can revive that passionate, younger self. If nothing else, it's a good sign that I can remember that young self and I have desire and hope to find her. At least it's a start.