Sitting here this morning drinking coffee with a bit of half and half. Not up as early as I would have liked, but I didn't have to set an alarm this morning and evidently my body needed a bit more sleep last night. I've read my usual morning quiet time stuff. I did a brief sitting meditation.
October began yesterday, and life continues. Some days one thrives and others one survives. Yesterday was one of those "survive" days for me.
It happens.
It wasn't because I was working at some backbreaking task, or running kids here and there while juggling errands and phone calls. Both of those options would certainly have made the day much better. Yesterday was one of those "in your head" sort of days, and sometimes those can be much more challenging.
Yesterday morning I stumbled upon a journal I had started just over twenty years ago. The date was April 28, 1998. This turned out to be exactly one year minus one day prior to me giving birth to my first child, on April 27, 1999.
I was twenty-five, had been married five and a half years. I had finished college and a brief 5th grade teaching stint. We had just moved back to Waxahachie after my ex had completed his coursework on his Ph.D.
As I read through a couple entries in this old journal, I found the feelings much more familiar than I expected. My 25-year-old self had written about feeling a bit lost and confused regarding her path and purpose in life. And it felt like a kick in the gut to realize that those feelings are once again an ever-present reality in my life.
In my journal, I described how we had decided to begin our family, and I had written about my feelings regarding all the waiting that goes into trying to get pregnant. Waiting to ovulate, waiting to see if we had gotten pregnant, waiting to see the doctor when things went wrong, waiting for the hormone treatments after an early miscarriage, waiting to see the if treatments worked, and then waiting to start the whole process over again.
I was also waiting to see if a full-time teaching position was going to work out, and trying to decide if I would take said position depending on when or if we would be starting a family.
Needless to say, there were a lot of questions and very few answers.
Reading through this twenty-year-old journal yesterday threw me for such a loop. I found myself inside my head in a very uncomfortable way. I'm a 45-year-old divorced former stay-at-home mom of three and I'm still full of questions and I have fewer answers now than I did then.
I felt the pressure of this distressing realization like a huge rock sitting dead center on my chest. My very breath felt heavy as I tried to breathe under this boulder. I felt the vice squeeze my temples and noticed the clenching of my jaw.
I wanted to run, but I had no place to go.
How in the effing world am I struggling with so many of the same questions (purpose and path) and it's two decades later?
I was angry at myself and the world. Angry because I hadn't done more, become more, made something more of myself. Frustrated that I suddenly felt so shitty about myself and couldn't shake it. Irritated that I was angry and frustrated. Annoyed at all the noise and chaos in my head. Sad. Just sad. And so very tired. And then I felt guilty for being so self-absorbed. All the while hearing my mindfulness self saying, "no judgment."
Yeah, I suck at that sometimes!
Needless to say, yesterday was a fuster cluck inside my head. It was unpleasant and disturbing and bothersome and stressful and heartbreaking and the list goes on...
So I'm trying to do better today, to be kinder to Deborah. I decided to write a few things I have learned about myself. To attempt to notice the answers I do have and simply sit with the questions that seem to never fade away.
I am a good friend. I am a hard worker. I care deeply for those I love. I have a lot of love to give. I want to see the people around me happy and healthy. I want to share joy and decrease pain. I enjoy helping people get work done. I don't like seeing people suffer. I don't like confrontation. I don't like over-consumption and consumerism. I am comfortable in my own skin. I love encouraging people. I enjoy cheering for others and helping them learn to cheer for themselves.
It's not all of who I am, but it's a good list. I will continue to sit with the discomfort and the questions. I won't run away or try to escape. I will sit with the good as well.
And I will read and re-read this passage from a book I'm working my way through...
"Confusion is our salvation. For the confused, there is still hope. Hang on to your confusion. In the end it is your best friend, your best defense against the deathliness of others' answers, against being raped by their ideas. If you are confused, you are still free." Dr. David Hawkins, "Letting Go"
Well, I am wonderfully free, because I'm confused as all get out by this process we call life. Come walk with me, we'll be confused together, but at least we won't be alone.
