Wanted: Life GPS

By the time you’re 40-ish, are we supposed to know what we’re doing with our lives?  How do we know we’re on the “right path” to wherever it is we’re supposed to be going? 

I’m typically a very happy person – grateful for what I have and don’t need much to live a simple life.  I have a roof over my head, food in my frig, water comes out of the tap when I turn it on and a stable job that pays for all of it… so what else do I need?  What else do I need to be happy?

I guess happy is a subjective word though.  I’m happy but am I satisfied with where my “path” has led me? I’m grateful for the journey so far as it has molded me into the person I am today.  But now what?  What is it that is going to satiate my life to LIVE.  Not to just breath, but to truly LIVE.

My whole life I was either someone's daughter, a girlfriend, a wife - it was a title I held, but a label that was never my own.  It wasn't until a few years ago when I finally realized that I no longer belonged to someone and I could in fact, create my own title:  Me.  And now, as I approach 40 later this year, I’m trying to figure out what identity belongs to Me – something I thought I had figured out long ago but apparently I had been confusing that with just surviving through the mayhem that is life. 

Yes, everyone has ups & downs, which in turn formulates who you become.  I have survived an ugly divorce – not only my own but of my parents after 30 years of marriage – and I had my heart shattered by someone I never thought would ever hurt me.  These were three overwhelmingly, emotional events which literally changed the course of my "planned" life I had anticipated; although my (multiple) therapists over the years I'm sure are all grateful for the neuroses that they created for me.  But I digress… yes, these moments changed me but WHO did it create as a result? A much stronger me, yes.  A much more confused soul... absolutely. 

When I was married, we had our lives planned out – we bought the house, had our future kids’ names picked out and it was pretty much assumed that my (ex)husband would be the bread-winner and I’d create the happy household.  When that image was taken over by reality- along with the illness of addiction (my ex), I was forced to become a much different person; I did whatever I could to emotionally survive and became what I thought at the time, the new me.  But in retrospect, it was just coping.. I still don’t think I was truly me. It may have been a ‘new & improved’ me but looking back, that person was still so lost.

After the divorce, little did I realize that I still had a lot of growing up to do.  I was still very emotionally immature, still innately angry but I had eradicated the drama in my life -  I thought that’s all I needed to do.  And for the time being, I was ‘fine’.

It’s been almost 10 years since I separated from my ex-husband and after countless hours of therapy, ending a different six-year relationship, I can say that I’m in a good place – emotionally, mentally, spiritually.  However, I feel that I’m at a crossroads in my life. I’m finally financially stable to support myself, out of debt and still have the luxury of the occasional shopping spree or holiday out of town.  But I’m finding that this "comfortableness" is unsettling and I’m craving something in my life to sustain something that has been perhaps missing – the last 10 years have simply been about weathering an emotional roller coaster and maturing, but I think there’s a sense of anxiety inside that has been waiting for the storm to settle to finally come out and play.  Now I just need to figure out what is going to satiate this anxiety that I'm spinning.

The question of "what am I doing with my life" constantly peppers my mind and I'm struggling with what direction I'm supposed to take next on this path.  I know God already has a perfectly laid out plan for me - although He & I are in a bit of an argument right now (that's for another post) but sometimes I wish I had a life GPS.