A Year of Purpose in Review

It's time to look back on the last year and how my One Word has played out.  For 2017 that word was PURPOSE.

In anticipation, I expected I would approach things with purpose.  That I would more consciously choose what I did and choose things that had a real purpose.  A purpose of value.  That instead of running around putting out fires, which my life has so often been, I would take a breath and choose.  I would ponder, if only for a minute, what was the proper use of my time and energy.  And that did happen.  Some.

But often it played out differently.  I had something I wanted to do or needed to do and tried to find a deeper purpose in it.  I need to go to the library to pick up a book for my daughter.  But what is the greater purpose for this.  My daughter is currently house bound.  I'm going to the library as an act of service.  I am doing something for her that she can't currently do for herself.  There were many instances of that.

Or I tried to give something purpose.  I'm going for a run.  This run is to build my running base.  Or I dedicate these miles to a friend who is struggling.  Things such as this.

But most often it happened in the middle of something I was doing.  I'm on hour three of a Netflix binge.  Why?  What is my purpose for spending so much time this way?  It's an effort to avoid the struggles of my life.  It's an attempt to dull the things I'm feeling that I don't want to feel.  It's a weird way I can feel like I'm accomplishing something, as I check episodes off.  There was way more of this type of analysis than usual.

I'm big on examining my motivation for things.  But this was a bit different.  Looking for a purpose.  And asking myself if my purpose was a healthy one.  Was it good for me?  Did it serve a larger purpose?  What general direction were these choices taking me, and did that lead to my bigger purpose?  To the broader goals, the long-term goals, I have for myself.

I can honestly say I sometimes did well with this and sometimes didn't.  Finding out what my purpose for doing something was sometimes stopped me in my tracks and made me change direction.  Other times not so much.

I think this one will stick with me.  And it leads well into 2018's word.  Coming soon.

Transitions

Seriously, who the crap am I?

Transitions are tough.  Even when the new state of being is positive.  Even when the other side is wonderful.  The change can be difficult.

I remember reading that transitions are especially dangerous mental health territory.  Well, I already have mental health issues.  And now I'm in the middle of several transitions.  What a surprise I'm having a tough time.

My youngest child just graduated.  I was so focused on all the pain-in-the-butt things that were going away that I didn't look much further ahead.  And now I find myself on unsolid ground.  Not sure of my footing.  Staring at a bunch of building materials with no idea what I want to create.

My oldest will be twenty-six in a few months.  For over twenty-six years (I'm including my pregnancy), my whole life has been focused on my kids.  Their safety.  Their happiness.  How to help them be good people.  That's a long time in one job.

My youngest will be eighteen in a little over a month.  And as my kids have become adults over the last few years, my role has changed somewhat.  They're in charge of, and in control of, more of their lives.  They're responsible for their choices, whether they act responsibly or not.  In a little over a month, I will not be legally responsible for anyone but myself.

And I'm having some trouble processing that.

The transition has happened slowly, in theory.  One child at a time.  A couple years in between each one.  So why does this moment feel so shocking?

Because she's the last one.

I've been a stay-at-home mom for most of their lives.  Significantly longer than I was single and childless.  When I no longer have minor children at home, but still choose not to work, what am I?

And what do I want to be?

See, here's the thing.  I have all the choices in the world.  My husband has no desire for me to work, for both physical health and mental health reasons.  Although he would support me if I chose to work.  Because he supports me in pretty much anything I want to do.

And that's the key phrase.  What I want to do.  And I have no idea.  What do I want to do?

My health is better than it's been in years, but it's still a day to day thing.  There are still days I can't get out of bed.  Still lots of fatigue and pain.

But there are other days.  Days when I feel pretty good.  Days when I feel powerful.  Days when I believe I can conquer the world.

I'd love to be able to plan out my life.  I'd love to live by schedule.  I'd love to know how I want to spend my days.  To write it all down and live by it.  But with the freedom to set it aside if a friend needs me.  And I'm just not sure how to balance that.

I yearn for structure.  I've always been a planner.  But when my health fell apart eleven years ago, I had to stop committing to things.  I had to stop planning.  Because it just felt so bad when I let others down, when I had to cancel at the last minute.  When I couldn't do that one thing I'd so looked forward to and worked to make happen.

I'm scared to plan again.  I'm not sure why.  And I guess I've planned all along, just on a different level.  I'm not sure why this feels so different.

Yes, I am.  I don't want to waste.  I don't want to use my time badly.  I don't want to just pass through day after day.  I don't want to look in my rearview mirror and see emptiness.  Days of nothing.

Before now, even if I did nothing else all day, I still parented.  I still did something productive, just by keeping people alive and on task in their lives.  When that's not my job anymore, what value do I have?  Especially if my days are spent just doing whatever I want.

I know I'll find my footing.  I always do.  And it will be great.  And I will be happy.  But right now I feel like I'm dancing on quicksand.  In an earthquake.  With a tornado approaching.

And I have to decide whether to hunker down or face the storm.

Living in the First Person, Present Tense

2012 was the year of KINDNESS for me.  It changed my life.  It changed me.  An entire year focused on one thing.  Kindness.  It was beautiful and glorious.  And while I will carry kindness forward with me, I am ready to move on.

This coming year I want to SEE.

I tend to be task oriented.  I get so focused on the task, the thing I am trying to accomplish, that I miss a lot.  I want to see more. 

I want to live in the first person, present tense.  I want to be truly present in the events and moments of my life.  I want to spend less time in the second person, worrying about what others do or should do.  I want to spend less time in the third person, observing life happening around me.  And I want to spend a lot less time in the past tense or future tense.  I want to be here.  Now.

Life is about moments.  It's about people.  It's about beauty.  That's where the glory of life happens.  But too often I miss it.

Instead of seeing the 360 degrees around me, I get stuck in tunnel vision.  Instead of seeing the technicolor of life, it becomes a grayish blur in my peripheral vision because I can't take my eyes off what's in front of me.

I want to see the beauty of a moment.  I want to rejoice longer as I watch my children enjoy each other's company.  I want to mourn deeper with my friends who are struggling.  I want to look more people in the eye and seek to understand.  I want to see progress in myself and acknowledge it and be proud of it instead of focusing on all the things I still need to fix.  I want to see purpose in the things I do by rote every day.

When I chose the word SEE to guide me in the next year, it felt so right.  It makes complete sense in my mind and heart.  It's about practicing mindfulness.  It's about making moments mean more.  It's about opening my heart wider.

I want to see with new eyes.  I want to see divinely.  I want to see as God sees.

I've had glimpses.  I sense that there will be times when my heart is overwhelmed.  I sense that I will cry more.  I will admit that I am a little frightened to completely open my heart and feel fully.  But I trust that this is the right next step.

And so, in faith I leap.

Transitions Suck or Forced Early Retirement

Take your pick.  Either title works.

I am in transition.  Kind of stuck in transition.  At least, I hope it's transition.  I hope it's not my new life for keeps.

I worked very little before I got married.  I got pregnant almost immediately after getting married, was incredibly sick, and became a stay-at-home mom.  We made lots of sacrifices to live on one income so I could be with my kids.  My heart and soul were devoted to them.  As exhausting and difficult as it was sometimes, it was totally worth it and I don't regret a minute of it.

As my youngest child approached school age people started asking what I was going to do with all my children gone.  I joked that I'd probably sleep the first year.  After that I might consider working.  We're old fashioned.  My husband believes it's his responsibility to provide for our family and I believe it's my responsibility to raise the kids.  We've each pitched in a bit in each other's realm, but for the most part we took the traditional route.  My husband left my choices about what to do with my life after the kids went to school entirely up to me.  Work or don't work.  My choice.

Kindergarten was only a couple hours a day, just enough time for me to run errands and get a few things done.  But when our baby started first grade it opened up six hours a day for me.  I wasn't looking for work, but as it happens a wonderful job fell into my lap.  A job I was perfectly suited for and excelled at.  A job full of wonderful people.  A job that helped others.  A job that was very personally satisfying.

I worked there for three or four years.  There were ups and downs as I tried to merge my work life and my family life.  I got to a point where I felt like I had it worked out.  Balanced?  Maybe not quite.  But well shuffled.  I was happy and content and fulfilled.

Then my health fell apart.

Long story short, I had to make a choice.  I only had enough in me physically to work or take care of my family -- not both.  It was a traumatic time.  I didn't want to give up what I'd gained through work.  But my heart told me to go home.  Many other people could fill my position at work.  No one could take my place at home.

So I quit my job and went home.  I'd been a stay-at-home mom for about fourteen years before that job.  I knew how to do it.  The transition back should be easy, right?  Not so much.

I didn't have little kids any more.  The world I left and the one I returned to weren't the same.  I was kind of lost.  Still lots to do in the morning and after school but so much empty time during the day.

Which should sound beautiful and appealing and free.  But it's not.  Because I don't feel well.  Really ever.  So I have six hours a day trying to force myself to do something even though I don't want to get out of bed.  I'm still searching for a purpose.  I would love to have a schedule and plans.  I would love to volunteer or create or make a dream come true.  But each day I don't know if I am going to be able to get out of bed.  I can't plan my day because I don't know if I'll be functional.

I keep thinking I'll find a routine, a rhythm to my life.  I'm still searching.  It's been five or six years.  I spent the first three or so going to doctors and doing everything I could to feel better, hoping in the back of my mind that I could go back to work some day.  Expecting that one day I would feel good again and go back to being the over-achiever I am in my heart.  I still go to doctors and try to feel better, but I now accept that I won't have that life back again.  This is the life I have now.  I need to figure out how to live it and feel fulfilled in it.

But I still feel like I haven't found my footing.  I still spend too much time floating from this distraction to the next trying to find what fits.  Bored and frustrated.  What works one day doesn't work the next.  One day I have a little energy but my mind won't work clearly.  The next day my mind is okay but I can't see well.  And then there are the days that I don't get dressed until just before my kids get home from school, having spent the whole day in bed without actually noticing that time passed.

I'm trying to create a life that fits me.  But I still struggle to know who I am now, in this new form.  I'm still wandering.  Hoping I'm still in transition.  Hoping I'm not just lost in my own life.

A Month of Kindness

It's been a month since I started my kindness project.  So what have I learned?

I've learned that 140 characters isn't very many.  I've learned that people define kindness differently.  I've learned that reading and posting a great kindness quotation in the morning doesn't mean I'm going to be kind all day.  I've learned that I can't be truly kind and cranky at the same time (although a kind moment can peek through a cranky cloud).  I've learned that having a single focus for an entire day is tough.

I did not grow up in a house filled with kindness.  I was not taught to be kind.  I learned lots of good things in my home, but I wouldn't say kindness was one of them.  I grew up in a home with a lot of sarcasm, a lot of yelling, a lot of fighting.  Not always, of course, but those things stuck with me.

Kindness was something I found outside my home. 

My grandmother was kind.  There was something different about her that drew me in.  An unconditional love.  Did she talk to me about kindness?  I don't remember.  But she treated me kindly.

And I'd say that is how I learned kindness -- by others being kind to me.  Kind people popped up in my life often.  They were heroes to me.   I wanted to be like them.  To this day, truly kind people will always be a draw for me.  It's like a magic power.

I've tried to be kind.  Sometimes I've succeeded; sometimes, not so much.  But I've really been struggling with it lately.  Especially in my home.

That's why I chose this word.  I want to be more kind.  I want to feel it in my heart.  I want to feel it so much that I can't contain it, that it is bursting from my seams.  I want to radiate kindness.

I've been working on it for a month and I'm not there yet.  Not even close.  I go like gang busters for a while and then fall flat.  Out comes the sarcastic remark or snotty comment.  I can apologize (although I often don't), but that won't take back what I said.

Change is hard.

It's possible that some of my difficulty is because I'm struggling with my emotional/mental/physical health.  It's always more difficult to be kind when I don't feel well.

Can I be kind when I am miserable?  Is it possible? 

I think so.  I haven't proven it yet.  The experiment goes on.

**********
I'm going to broaden my word choice a bit.  I'm going to include words which I feel connect to or are an aspect of kindness.  Words like charity, respect, compassion.  One word just wasn't enough to capture the change I'm looking for.

Thank You, Marcus Bakeman

What inspires you?

As you think about this, let me tell you a story.  Imagine me as a junior in high school (put Sam's head on Jess' body and you have a pretty good representation).  It's the fall of 1986.  I walk down the halls of SHS, past the office, turn left and then turn into the first door on the right.  This is my English class.  I sit down and wait for class to begin. 

The teacher comes in.  He walks to the front of the class and holds up a small figurine.  It is of a Mexican man, sitting with his knees pulled to his chest, head resting on his knees so that his sombrero hides his face.  The teacher instructs us to write about this figure for the next ten minutes or so.  After a moment, hands go up.  "What are we supposed to write?"  "Will we be turning this in?"  "How long does it have to be?"  He answers, "Write whatever you want.  Write whatever you think about when you see this.  There is no length requirement.  You will be graded only on participation.  Write until I tell you to stop."

We did this every day with different prompts; it was called journal writing.  Sometimes it was an object, like the figurine.  Sometimes it was a song.  Sometimes it was a question.  My favorites were when he brought his guitar and sang -- especially Chalkin' and Huggin'.

The cynic would say that this was so that he could keep us busy while he got ready for our class. There could be many other, more altruistic, reasons for doing this as well.  But the reason doesn't matter. What matters is what I learned.

I learned to look.  I learned to notice.  I learned to think.  I learned to express.

It was one of these journal writings that helped me and my best friend discover that we had opposing political beliefs.  It was through these journal writing prompts that I was exposed to Don McLean and James Taylor.  And it was in these journal writings that I discovered my love for essay writing.

I'd always written, for as long as I'd known how.  I'd written poetry and short stories.  But never did I feel more free than when I did these exercises.  Never did I feel more empowered than when I discovered how to express my thoughts and opinions safely on paper.  And I loved it.

Sometimes people ask me how on earth I chose "that" topic to write about in my blog, whatever that may be.  "You notice such strange things."

And I think back fondly and thank this teacher, not just for teaching me the assigned subject, but for teaching me to think and helping me discover something about myself.  Thank you, Marcus Bakeman.  May you ever continue chalkin' and huggin'.