There is a looming enemy in my journey to move forward in my life. I have dreams - as blurry as they may be - that I want to reach for but I am always being stopped in my tracks. By a lack of confidence in myself. By my habit of automatically putting other's needs before mine. By having dreams and plans that are so huge that they become a fixation and I am unable to acknowledge or celebrate the small movements along the way.
By giving more time and priority to the menial and meaningless instead of soul-filling wonderfulness for me.
Often, therefore, I am not taking the next step at all.
In my case, I am living my life hesitantly instead of moving forward in who I am. I am living my life through other's needs instead of finding and filling my own. I am constantly questioning and judging my abilities and gifts instead of enjoying them and making even further discoveries about myself.
I am simply not living the life that has been given to me. I am not being the best MaeB that I can.
It is a simple and powerful thing, I would imagine, once you have the hang of it. Being your true self that is. The person you were at birth. Before every little detail and experience - wonderful or horrible, huge or miniscule, positive or negative - that you lived through in your life, had it's part in carving out and shaping who you've now become. If you could get back to that person, you would be living out life in the way that you were meant to.
I remember hearing a radio piece on this very subject. In fact, it was the first time that I had ever considered such an idea. It spoke to me very loudly. I respond well to ideas that are sensible and logical and this was one of them. Since then, it is something that I ponder now and again.
I'd like to explore this idea personally over the next couple of posts. I will be thinking back to when I was a child. Likely in that 5 to 10 age range. The time of our lives when we are actively playing - heart and soul.
I am a planner and a visionary. I have a distinct memory of sitting in my girlfriend's back porch "sewing" curtains. Exactly how it was we were doing this, I have no idea. These curtains were for a little lean-to fort of some sort that we, along with our two neighbourhood (boy) friends had been building. We had spent a whole day or possibly more on creating it and were having a lot of fun doing it. I guess it was the female in my girlfriend and I that decided that we needed such a frivolous addition. But, as we worked on them, I can remember having a clear picture of my friend and I wearing (old-fashioned) dresses and serving food to our little buddies. I think I even envisioned an upstairs addition. In my (eight? year old) eyes, we were going to live out some sort of "playing house" fantasy. My vision was clearly enormously bigger and more detailed than the reality was ever going to be.
I am still that person. If my husband begins to make sounds about doing some small renovation in the house, I turn on my idea machine and let it roll. By the time I am done, Hub has lost interest and has moved on to something else - preferably as far to the opposite end of the house as possible! This scenario has happened repeatedly in our household and lives to the point where, Hub has generally lost interest in doing any of it.
On the positive side, a lot of great ideas have come out in my uncontrolled spewing. I am an idea machine. When trying to come up with something for one of our businesses for instance, I am a human think tank! Although some are farfetched, I'll often come up with one that is a keeper.
Although a positive attribute, it is clearly problematic in some areas. In ways that I spend my personal time, I set myself such high visions, that I most often will never have a chance to reach. I then feel like I've failed and I give up. It is a cycle that I have repeated in many areas of my life. That I feel overwhelmed with all that I have to do and achieve knowing that I never will.
I don't know what it is I need to do here exactly. My feeling is that I don't want to temper or put a cap on my ideas. That feels confining and restraining. Maybe I need to let it all out and then sort of work my way back to the sort of best but realistic one. Maybe Hub needs to be more understanding of who I am, and that when I go on a rant, he just needs to gently bring me down to a manageable idea. Maybe we need to work together on this.
In my personal journey, I need to have the vision but be content with the simple steps. To enjoy the journey and not set my sights - and my feelings of self-worth - only on the destination. I will likely never reach the destination and, some would say, lucky for me. Because once you reach that point, there is no where else to go.
You know, I never recall actually hanging those curtains. Likely, while my friend and I were busy in her porch and I was building bigger and better fort plans in my head, our little friends had moved on to something else. Like catching tadpoles or frogs or some other "boys only" activity. We may have tagged along with them or we may have remembered some barbies that needed dressing.
I am envisioning making my way over to the little ramshackle lean-to at the back of our little friend's garage. It is nothing more than a few random pieces of 2x4s, but I hang the curtains up inside on a few nails that are sticking out. I stand back to admire my work. The "window" is really just a spot where there is a gap between two short pieces but, now there is a splash of colour there and it pleases me. I smile contentedly, and turn for home. I probably will not return to the fort. It sure was fun building it! Once it was completed, we sort of lost interest in what it's actual purpose was. Of course, it didn't really matter. I feel happy to have made something pretty and I skip towards home, practicing my whistle a I go. I wonder what tomorrow will hold?
