Train of Thought

I've decided after doubting it for awhile that I'm still in here, I'm still me. I am still a person outside of the roles I play. I'd lost touch with that girl. Like an old friendship that faded but neither party was exactly sure why. I was reading over some of my old blog archives tonight and came across this...

That was just over a year ago. I was begging and pleading for change and boy have I had a whole lotta that in the past year. I've moved across the country, uprooted my life, quit my job, became pregnant for the last time, had a beautiful baby, tried to learn and grow and stretch with the demands of being a mother to four, beautiful daughters. I've fretted and wondered what my future holds after dealing with life plans that were being altered yet again. I've dealt with reoccurring disappointment and let downs from people that I never felt I deserved it from. And despite all this change, the redeeming change I begged for and thought was the magical answer to everything, I realized that my old life just packed itself in the moving boxes and came with me.

I found myself looking in the mirror a few months back. My saggy, post-baby body a perfect reflection of my spirits and outlooks on my future, outside of the bright and beautiful faces of my children. My eyes lifted from taking in the effects of gravity at work and I stepped closer to the mirror and looked right, straight into my eyes and asked "Hello? Is anybody in there?" It was a weird feeling. Like knocking on the door of that old friend's house and shuffling away in disappointment when nobody came to the door.

Time is a funny thing. It passes. People, places, things, they all change. Unless we are in alignment with ourselves though, the venue of our lives won't make a bit of difference. Something happened in the past week that hasn't happened in years...maybe possibly ever? I decided that I wasn't going to keep waiting for life to make sense to me. I wasn't going to keep waiting for other people to make me a priority. I realized I have to do those things for myself. I have to put myself on the map of my own life.

When I turned 30 back in August, it wasn't nearly as traumatic for me as some people make it out to be. Married at 18, working to put a husband through school and then starting a family at 23. My entire 20's had been about somebody else. I was a wife and a mother, both noble and worthy things, but nothing was about me. I lost myself in my roles, trying so hard to do and be enough for everyone I loved. So I decided rather than dread, I would embrace my 30's with open arms. Like my mom said "Your 30's are great because your body is still young, but you're not as dumb as you are in your 20's!" Have I mentioned I love my mom? I do. But I quickly found that even in my first few months of my new, recommitted 30's I quickly lost track of myself yet again. I wrote in my journal one night that I felt like I was on a speeding train. Scenery was passing outside the windows of the passenger car in a blur and I was unable to even take it in. Unable to find the beauty in the unfamiliar. I was headed on a track to an unknown destination, out of my control and I was merely a voiceless passenger.

I always have thought of myself as spunky. Which secretly I liked, because who likes a pleasey-pleaser all the time? Only those who use them. After some reflection though I realized that the pattern of my life revealed to me that I was just a pleaser with a spunky facade. Ouch. That one hurt. My gerbil wheel, my let downs, my unfulfilled dreams...were just as much my fault as anyone else’s. I facilitated them by not putting myself on the map of my own life. I didn't just allow myself to be put on the back burner, I put myself there.

But for some reason a few days ago I had this epiphany that no one else in life is going to make me a priority if I don't make myself a priority. I refuse to allow myself to be that voiceless passenger. I refuse to not be able to enjoy the beautiful things that await me out of the windows of life because I am so scared and so uncertain of where it is taking me. I refuse to sit in that passenger car and wring my hands uselessly. Dang it, I'm up front, engineer cap on and I am driving the train of my own life! Since making this decision, I have felt the distance between me and my true self melt away. As I have started to plan and act upon my own personal goals I have felt my burdens lift and my outlook brighten. The obstacles I face in my life haven’t changed, but I have and in doing so it has made all the difference. My new view is not just out the side windows taking in the views of life happening around me. But also of the open track, stretching out in front of me, taking me to the destination of my choosing.