Chapter 32 - Finding Me

I keep talking about my 'journey' and really it is the word of the year. Everyone has been talking about journeys. You just need to turn on the radio or TV and you will hear someone talking about journeys. But what exactly does it mean?

The official Google definition for the word 'journey' is "the act of traveling from one place to another" and I like that. That is what I have been trying to do, to go from one place to another. I 'awakened', for lack of a better word, one day to feel as though my life was not where it should be. I felt as though I was not where I should be - I needed to move from this place to another.

At first I wasn't conscious of being on a journey or even moving at all. What I wanted to do was discover why I was where I was. This led me to go into a retrospective mode, looking back and being very clinical about my choices, and they were my choices. If I am honest, it was as if something was guiding me or pushing me.

I'm not sure what my belief system is. I believe in God but I am also a fatalist. I don't know if these two beliefs are in conflict but it is who I am. I know that things and people come into our lives for reasons, sometimes we can't see what the reason is while we are living in that moment, but over time it will become clear. I am very analytical and critical so I can always decipher the whys - some reasons take longer to realize but it is always clarified.

My journey is about finding me. Up to this point I have never been me. I have been who other people thought I should be, I have done what other people thought I should do. But not once have I done what I wanted to do. In fifty years I have been living my life through or for everyone else - that has not always been a bad thing, but it hasn't been real. God this sounds so selfish, doesn't it? But a life not lived for you is a waste of a life.

Just in the few short weeks since I have been writing here I can see the progress I have made. At the outset of writing I was hurt and was looking for judgment of Rett and myself, but now I can see that it is no one's place to judge us. We will judge ourselves, learn and go on. It is a chapter in life's book, nothing more, nothing less. Pages are turned and we learn from it all.

God I have learned so much over the last year, it almost feels like I have been making up for lost time. I sometimes wonder if I am feeling as if an end is near by the imperativeness of my actions. But no, it is a beginning, not an end I feel: Like I am on the edge of something great, something wonderful and I can't wait to see what happens next - not with dread but with anticipation.

It is a scary thing to rediscover or to discover you. What will people think of me? Will I be the same me as before? Will I want to completely change my life? Will I like me?

As silly as these questions are, they are the questions I have been asking myself. I know the answers will not come in some great epiphany, but will come with time. I just realized the irony in my first question - again I am putting other people’s judgment of me first, and that is so wrong. If I like me, then the rest will fall into place. It is the law of attraction - a law of the Universe and you can't argue with that!

Life is so precious, so short and so sweet. If you are not living it for you, then who are you living it for? It is yours to live! Each of us is given this gift for a reason, and it is our job to find out what the reason is, hence my journey. I am working towards finding out my reason for being.