Waiting for the Purpose to Find Me

I was born with many talents. My son wows me on a number occasions with his many gifts but that exactly what I was too as a child: the best at everything – school, dance, music, social skills. I set up goals and worked hard to achieve them. I liked to challenge myself and see how far I could go. And I certainly envisioned the brightest possible future for myself.

Then how come at 32 I am stuck and feel like all those talents have vanished? I remember hearing at some TV show that “by 30 a person should know his place in life”. I think I’m more clueless than I was at 18.

One of the reasons could be that I ran out of personal challenges. It’s not that there are none endeavors left for me to take. It’s just that most of the key goals have been achieved. My education (1.5 college degrees), marriage, a child, a house, a car that I finally started driving after overcoming my fear, basic work experience. Even the country and the city of my choice that I can truly call home, with all torturous immigration procedures behind me. So when my best friend shares her many wants and unfulfilled wishes, I almost envy her, because I seem very content with all I have. My sister says that you need to have a wish that will be your guiding star in life, your incentive to keep pushing forward. I took on many ambitious dreams and actually got to live them. I guess I can now sit back and enjoy the fruit of my labor. A rather terrifying perspective...

“ If you lose your purpose ... it's like you're broken. ”
― Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret

With all the “essentials” covered, it’s actually possible for me to take the time and really think of what I want to do next. The luxury not many people have since they are devoting all the precious life hours to basic survival. I almost miss my “surviving years”, because back then hard work negated all the extra thinking, so in a way it was a blissfully-brainless existence. Now that old “I’m-too-tired” is no longer an excuse for wasting my days. So I have to find this scary-elusive thing called the Purpose and get the process started. If only I had the slightest idea what exactly is my purpose in life, like some know that they are meant to be doctors, civil right activists, actors or presidents. I don’t have any clear sense of my calling so “any-work-will-do-for-now” approach has to suffice until I figure it out. My son says, “but you are such a good mom, that’s your purpose”. I don’t argue but I feel there has to be more for me out there… And we can and probably should have more than one purpose.

“I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and types of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason, too.”
― Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret

I know that I can live my life as it is now. If it ain’t broken, why fix it, right? But I was going at such a crazy pace in my twenties, and achieved so much, that I can’t imagine stopping now. Slowing down? – Yes. Stopping? – Never! The way life works, I know that eventually I will get some exposure to the “next big thing”, be it meeting the right person, or just being in the right place at the right time when everything suddenly shifts and you are in a new terrain, and though it’s still you, the change is now happening and you are becoming someone else.

“You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

I’m still afraid to miss the sign, to never be shown the right door that will open for me and me only. I believe that the most important things appear more than once in different form and shape, so sooner or later you are bound to notice them and make them part of your life. But I also believe that in order for a change to happen, it must be preceded by the internal change, spiritual growth, getting in the right set of mind. Until then that whole “being in the right place at the right time” won’t happen, the important signs will pass unnoticed. Looking at things when you have all this clatter in your head is as good as living blindfold. You can see but you can’t make the connections.

So here I am at 32, thinking hard, and reading a lot, and imagining, and hitting the walls, and impatiently waiting.

Feeling Sad is Easy

“How we see the world changes all the time. It all depends on our mood.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Girl Who Chased the Moon

There’s so much noise in life. And clutter. And also so much beautiful silence.  And happiness. We get to choose where to divert our attention, in which moments to linger. And what episodes we should just let pass quickly as inevitable life experience we have to endure but not necessarily allow to inhabit our minds indefinitely.

It’s all about the choice we make. I can drive myself insane thinking about the fight with my husband or I can take my camera and go take some photos. I can go in circles about his unfairness or take a walk along the beach because there’s nothing like the smell of the ocean in the morning. I can think of all the words I should say to get through his stubbornness and prove my point or I can start a new book and let it carry me into the world of other people’s problems and blessings.

I can choose to complain, and feel sorry for myself and maybe even act all sad and irritated. Or I can choose to take myself out of the context even though it requires some force, and transport myself elsewhere. We don’t always appreciate how lucky we are to be able to choose a better place for our mind for each given moment, unlike the physical location for our body.

It’s not about running away from problems, it’s more like not letting them reach you with full force. If life is an earthquake, we have more ability to control the emotional magnitude of each hit than we think. We just have to work on the inner switch that will facilitate quick transfer between various emotional states. Catching myself brooding over some unpleasant incident for hours I get mad for wasting my life whereas I could have been enjoying it doing something more positive. Or thinking much lighter and more enjoyable thoughts.

So I choose not to dwell in a bothersome situation and do/think something else instead. And I then I find this something else and hit my mental switch. I create moments. And then I multiply them until they fill my days enough to leave no space to worry, anxiety or sadness.

Feeling sad is easy, happiness requires work. I wake up each morning and I can feel some unhappiness already building up in all corners of my conscience. If I feed it during the day, by the night time it will become full-blown depression. I set to work on opening all my doors and windows to let the light in. And even if dusk is all I achieve, it’s still better than complete darkness.  

There’s no point in waiting till someone delivers happiness and all you have to do is sign, unwrap and start enjoying. Too much happiness is hidden and we need to go find it, extract and  keep it from sneaking out. But this happiness hunt starts the moment you choose to not be unhappy.

The New Taste of Freedom

A number of years ago the idea of staying at home would be terrifying enough to frantically look for any employer that would have me. Today it is the most welcomed turn of events, something I’ve in fact been dreaming about for 3 years now. Unemployed. The blessed adjective that prompts people to look at me with pity as I think in return – I’m the one who should pity YOU. I thought that working will provide all the answers whereas it barely left me any time to think. It was funny how I used to look forward to my daily commute as it was the only time I had for thinking. And reading a book. And spacing out too, staring into the window but seeing nothing. The rest of the day was just a rat-race.

So now I have one of the biggest luxuries in the world – time! And my head is spinning from all the things I want to be doing in the next several months and it already seems like even all this time will not be enough. I want to stay active, so sleeping more is not on my list, but I also want to have those unproductive days when I just enjoying doing pretty much nothing. I want to travel deep into my head and explore all the concepts I’ve pushed off getting into because they required time, and solitude, and silence. But I also crave hours of non-thinking, just blessed being without any whys and whatfors. 

I need to fight off a dangerous temptation to disconnect from the world because as precious as solitude can be, it quickly turns into loneliness mixed with depression if “consumed” in excessive quantities. I don’t want to underestimate the power of having the right people in my life, so I turn my messenger back on and accept invitations for lunch. And I have to plan out my days and stay active, else I will fall prey to laziness attacks, which is really depression in disguise. 

I don’t know what this summer has in store for me… Will I heal? Grow? Transform? Degrade? I just want it to be something more than just another season lived through and forgotten. 

P.S. Only my own photography moving forward, need to justify the purchase of an expensive camera right before losing my job…

Every Day is a Fresh Start

This week I felt like I’ve reached all the possible limits of holding it together. I’ve been saying all the wrong things to people, which provoked the long-forgotten lack of confidence and a strong desire to crawl to a secret cave where no one will witness my failures. It caused a lot of self-disgust too. My stronger self literally had to pull the loser in me from the dark bottom and persuade that it’s not my fault and I’m only an imperfect human being, just like everyone around me.

Time has acted funny too, it’s been slipping through my fingers as if hours suddenly became seconds. I got nothing done. I rushed through things and postponed catching my breath till later. But this later never comes and it’s been months. I just want to pause and do some serious thinking, which will clear my head. But once I stop for just a second, I am attacked by such extreme laziness mixed with depression that I hurry to get back on the move. So it’s either keeping myself chaotically busy or falling prey to dark thoughts.

My kid told me that I inspire him with my words. It almost caused me to break down in tears. I sure don’t inspire myself anymore. And since I don’t have anyone else to do the job, I have to be my own motivator and it’s another big responsibility on the list, which I already struggle to keep up with. I’ve felt so so down because of my inability to express myself, to talk to people in a meaningful way, to feel good about the way I look, think and speak. I've been feeling the strain in my facial muscles because I was so focused on not losing my composure.

The words are failing me, the world is failing me, I’m failing myself. But the thing is if I turn my back on myself there’s no one left. Which will mean free falling. So I have to be gentle, loving, forgiving and supportive. So I forgive myself for all the mishappenings of the week, for withstanding this profound sadness that almost swallowed me whole. I still love myself and tell myself I was made this way for a reason. And if I really look deep inside, I will see that I am a bottomless well of light. This volatile reality almost made me lose it for a while by imposing its crumbling walls, but there’s one true reality above it all and its name is love.

Autumn Blur

It makes me sad to realize that more and more often joy leaks out of my eyes leaving hollow space. Over-worked, ever-busy woman that needs to squeeze an unimaginable amount of to-do volume into each given week to feel good about herself. I am afraid to seize the regular flapping motion because then I am in the power of a stream. By checking things off my list, I can maintain the illusion that it's me who is in control.

But being busy can be such a bliss, it helps you ignore the screaming gaps in your happiness. Occasionally these moments of realization and acknowledgment hit me hard as if knocking all breath out of my lungs. Some things are so pathetic you want to laugh out loud if only it was not you they were happening to. The same wall I always hit because somehow I always manage to forget it's there. And I have to turn around and go back to being humble. Because if nothing has changed in that many years maybe the wall is my life-long "award".

It's green light elsewhere, but for some reason this particular road is closed to me. There are endless opportunities to explore in numerous other directions, yet deep power, painful longing brings me back to the same spot, every time with various amounts of hope.

Have I done enough? Have I earned the right to cross over? Will the light ever turn to green for me?

Random

There are thin invisible layers in our life. Living within. Reading signs. Interpreting coincidences. Knowing without proper understanding how you know…

I tend to overwhelm myself with these mysterious elusive layers, incorporating them into my daily reality as very legitimate components. Thinking thoughts I should not be thinking, persuading myself that as long as they are just thoughts, which would never leave the premises of my head, no harm is done to anyone. But do those secret thoughts really stay secret? You lose control over yourself for half a second and they come streaming out of your eyes, or as this big warmth radiating from your whole body.

If I put a restraint on myself I feel dead. A dried-up well. If I cut myself loose, I do lots of damage. I promise slip-ups won’t happen again. Yet they do. Because most of it is unintentional. Or sub-conscious, which is the same thing.

As I manage to get a tight grip on my way of thinking and acting, as I correct my ways to being 100% proper, I suddenly feel the attack of such an immense feeling of boredom that for a moment I fear I will never be able to breathe. So I let myself have these little moments of excitement, this genuine joy that I disguise as something situation-appropriate. I indulge in just the right portion of inappropriate thinking, like a former chain-smoker indulging in one cigarette at the end of the day. The hard part is to maintain the smallness, to contain it before it grows out of proportion. When it concerns other people, their thoughts and actions count too. So as long as you can tell yourself I wasn’t the one to cross this line first…

Living with this load of reality, desires, principles and random acts that don’t match, don’t exist in the same plateau, is like trying to make a picture using pieces from different puzzles. There will always be parts that don’t belong here, that disrupt your perception of a picture, that capture all your attention by the way they stand out.

I mostly know what doing the right thing is, but how about feeling the right thing? What are the rules there? Do we even have control of how we feel? Because if not, then the guilt is not justified and can be “set free” as an atavism. I’m just tired of censoring my feelings, the way I am just because it’s in conflict with my lifetime principles. I want to feel what I feel. And sometimes I want to act upon it.

Why I Couldn't See

It surprises me to snap out of my acceptance when I least expect it. And I’ve been accepting a lot lately. So be it, it is what it is, these are the cards I’ve been dealt. And then out of the blue comes the crushing thought – I can no longer put up with it. Acceptance provides comfort but also drugs you into oblivion: there was something I aspired for, some kind of aim and purpose; if only I could shake up my mind, dust if off, I would certainly recall what the ultimate purpose was. I’m afraid to forget. I let circumstances shape me into something I wouldn’t expect I would turn to. I should be able to rise above and stay true to myself. Evolve – yes, but not dissolve into this nebula of human activity.

I begin to realize that every post here is a shout-out to my true self, like when you rummage in the dark looking for something and feel so much relief when your hand finally reaches for it, so you know it’s still there, waiting to be pulled back to light. Why do I complain every day? You can either change the circumstances that fail to satisfy you or do the best of your current situation. It’s important to stay up-beat no matter how forced it is. Else you will lose yourself to the grudge virus and nothing will ever be good enough. But I forget to program myself, do the mental work that is required to stay happy and keep your face: I slip into the trench of grumpiness and judgment. I have my high standards and everyone who fails to live up to them deserves my harsh criticism. And I, myself, often fall into this category of unworthy.

So I forget, I accept this side of me and even let it take the dominating place and dictate the rules. I follow my immediate impulse: it’s always easy to go with the stream, isn’t it? If I feel like complaining, I will not deprive myself of the pleasure. Moody, grumpy, somewhat arrogant. I even started cursing again, which was so against my principles not so long ago. Who is this person? Why do I want to stick with it? Because I’ve been too busy lately to read any inspirational stuff to fuel me and send me moving in the right direction? I’ve been restless and I thought I knew the source of this restlessness, but I was wrong. Being busy fills up your life but often shuts down your mindfulness. That’s when you accept, forget and move blindly until you realize that you’re lost.