The best laid schemes – Gang aft agley.

There are a lot of dreams I’ve let go – lots of disappointment and failure that I shoo away from my bedside each morning. I wake up each day in a life I never imagined for myself, in a place I never planned. I look back on it all and I try to understand what happened because I never saw this coming. I spent 9 years dreaming up a life that is no more. 5 years of it were spent planning and building a home I never really got to live in. I planted rose bushes that I will never see flower, trees that will grow tall and make shade I will never enjoy on a hot, summer afternoon.

I am not saying I am the only person this has happened to. I am not asking for pity. I am just trying to live again. It is harder than I ever thought it would be to let go of all that happened and find a new path.

I am trying to find my way – some direction – that will lead me away from all those painful memories and dreams that I left behind. At first, this was about things. I wanted to surround myself with beautiful things because I had lived for so long with nearly nothing but a dream and it seemed to me that using furniture, art, pottery, books, curtains, 400ct egyptian cotton sheets and beautiful fluffy towels would help define this new life. I am not sure that I succeeded in defining anything but it has given me a space to which I can retreat, a place where I feel safe enough to lie on my couch and mourn for everything I walked away from.

It has taken a great deal of casting about to realize that I have no idea what I am doing with my life. I am generally capable of getting out of bed each morning and going to work. I cook great food, write, laugh with my son. . . but I lack any plan for where I want to be in 10 years. I’ve always had a plan for where I would be in ten years and I knew that even if it changed, I still needed to have one. I am not sure what to do now that I find myself unable to invent one.

I’ve tried. I have planned everything from going back to school or finding a job in another town to moving to Italy so that I can live on a vineyard and make wine. When one of those plans falls through (as they all have because I don’t really want any of those things,) I find myself simply getting drunk enough that I can pass out and not dream.

I am not at a complete loss.
Even without a plan, I have recently come to realize a few, rather important, things.

1. I need to be okay with all of this. I need to trust myself and know that it is my path, that I learn from it, that it might happen again and that I should be thankful for all of it because it is what drives and shapes me. It is impossible to imagine who I would be without all of this.
2. Maybe I don’t need a plan. Maybe I don’t need to be in such a hurry to run away from myself. I think it might be time to stop and look at who I am rather than continue pretending to be someone I am not.  I have done a lot of self reflection in the last 5 years but I am talking about dedicating time and energy to becoming the person I really want to be.
3. I might need some help working through all of this. I have always been ridiculously, fiercely, stubbornly independent. I am starting to realize that it pushes people away and maybe it is time to start looking to others for help. I have been debating this one for a year (ridiculous!) and a lovely man I know has helped me realize what I need to do. I am not sure he knows he has done this but he’s been caring and patient as he’s explained to me what I do and how he feels about it. I am so thankful.
4. I must write about all of it.  I have always written about my life.  I will sit down upset and distracted and sometimes it takes hours but writing focuses and relaxes me.
   Some people exercise or paint – I write.
   It started out as something that was just for me and I was terrified of people discovering my journals, my deepest thoughts. Revealing all those things made we weak, vulnerable.  I hid my writing away for years – decades, actually. Then I decided to make it public.
   Being open and honest about who I am and what I feel is one of the hardest things I have ever done but also one of the best. I am not even sure who reads this stuff but I am not going to hide anymore. The writing is for me. It is how I process and it is how I remember. I share it simply because I need to stop being afraid of people knowing who I am.

So I guess it boils down to this. Know what I want from life and ask for it. Stop being afraid. Find a good therapist. Be open and honest. Smile. Love back.