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Questions For The New Year

Therese Borchard feels like a therapist like figure in my life, although I only know her through her articles.  Today's post is brought to you by this article about self growth in the new year. 

What are these 5 questions?

1. What is one thing I don't enjoy?

2. What is one thing I do enjoy?

3. What is my purpose?

4. What did I learn last year?

5. What do I want to learn?

Let's tackle these questions one by one.  They require heavy lifting and I'm not quite stretched out, but I'll give it my best.

What is one thing I don't enjoy?
Oy.  What a loaded question.  How big or small are we talking?  Because I don't like cooked carrots or being cold.  But if I dig down a little deeper in my soul, I don't enjoy having a lack of purpose.  (side note: question 3 is going to suck)  I mean, I have purposes but I don't have The Big Purpose, something that completely satisfies my soul.  I don't think I've ever had it and that emptiness is part of what smothers my spark for living.  That's another thing...

I don't enjoy just surviving.  I want to live a full and satisfied life, and I'm not quite there yet.  I'm much farther down that road, thank God, but I'm not there.  So that's two things I don't enjoy.  Sort of related.  I'm going with it.

What is one thing I do enjoy?
Quiet.  I really enjoy the soft sounds of my days with the hum of appliances, the tick tack of dog claws on the floor, the heavy sigh of the cat, the muted phone calls my husband takes minute after minute, hour after hour.  But I think my enjoyment of it is stifling, so I'm admitting that maybe my love of relative silence might not be a healthy thing.  Kind of goes back to question 1 where I don't enjoy just surviving and part of surviving my days includes wrapping myself in the quiet of an uneventful day.

What is my purpose?
Ugh.  This is the hardest one of them all.  What is my purpose in life?  Is it to make others happy, or myself, or both?   Is it to reach for the golden ring and take the leaps or is it to enjoy the moments thoroughly?  Is it to be a writer or a mom or a wife or a friend?  Is it all of them?  None of them? 

Why was I put here on this Earth?  To love?  To create?  To pursue?  To think?  To act? 

I don't know my purpose, and even Therese points out that this isn't a question to be answered on the fly some January afternoon.  But it has planted a seed in my tender brain.  It'll be something I ponder and pray about in the months to come.

What did I learn last year?
The first thing that comes to mind IMMEDIATELY is that I am weak.  And then almost as quickly comes the retort that I am strong.  Truth is that I learned through everything that I am both, and that is the reality of my situation.  Without help, without my village, without the people I love in my life fighting right beside me, I wouldn't be here typing out these words.  Not being able to lift myself up?  I know there will be a chorus of disagreement (and believe me, it's on the list of things to discuss with the therapist), but I see that as weak.  I couldn't keep up with my own brain and I had to tap out and ask for a ton of help.  The fact that I had to ask is weak.  The fact that I actually asked is strength.

My brain knows that I'm not weak for needing help.  It really does, but the loud ugly voices in my head haven't been tamed.  I don't know where they live... in my brain, my heart, my soul?  But they bounce around there like pinballs, wreaking havoc on my very existence.  Someday I hope to say that I've learned that I'm not weak.  Perhaps next year?

What do I want to learn this year?
Perfect segue!  I want to learn that I am not weak.  I want to learn that I exist beyond diagnoses or people's perceptions or my own preconceived notions.  I want to learn my purpose in life. 

Sometimes I wonder that this last summer could have been some sort of midlife crisis.  I remember turning 40 without a care in the world.  I was unemployed still but hopeful.  I was busy doing this and that.  I really didn't think that turning 40 was a big deal, but looking back on everything that 2018 was, I might have underestimated what hitting the middle of my life means.  Or at least what I thought it meant.

I remember being at my shiny new job in June and looking around with this horrific realization that this was going to be the rest of my life.  I would work here until I would die, that half my life was over and it was in the blink of an eye and oh my gosh, the second half of my life is going to go by even faster and then I'll be dead and all I'll have in my head are these four cubicle walls and the faint sounds of churning machinery.  I'll miss out on G's life, I'll miss out on being a wife, I'll miss out on life.  Looking back, I shouldn't have cut out my anti-anxiety med, honestly.  I needed more help than what the hospital gave me in April.  So much was poured into that meltdown that hitting midlife was just an incredible, tipping point coincidence. 

Now it's 2019.  No matter how arbitrary it is, this is a fresh sheet of paper.  I have my pen in hand, ready to do the work. 

How about you?

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