It's amazing how much comfort my sons bring me without them even having to try. They are my own little creatures...one part me, one part Andy, and one part something special. Now that they are older, they see that even when we don't see eye to eye on things, they know their parents accept them as they are. They feel comfortable enough to discuss things with me, and I love the way their minds work. Makes me proud to have such free-thinking, independent kids.
I'm having a rough week. Feeling restless and unsure of where I stand in my own life. I tend to get quiet and withdrawn during these times.
It unnerved people when I'm quiet or when I don't want to eat. Sometimes I just like to be quiet. I spend so much time alone that it's become the norm. Being the wife of a soldier is a very lonely life. In between all the deployments and schools and training, I have a part time husband. When we manage to meet up and life is calm, it's rather enjoyable. But when we have one thing after another, it's hard to remember how to just "be".
I think that's what my therapist is trying to teach me....how to just be. I have no purpose in life today. I have no real goals anymore.
It sounds like a bad thing, but it's not. It's a clean slate with no expectations. I am taking time to really figure out what I want in my life, and stop measuring the successes and failures based on other peoples evaluations of it.
In other words, I don't give a rats ass if anyone likes it.
I plan to get back in a regular blogging mode next week. I've been doing it via iPhone, which is not easy.
I think I know just what you mean. I took a break from college to move with my parents to Germany, and subsequently ended up working in Kuwait, Iraq and the UAE as a contractor. While I was working and trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, my friends were getting their degrees and advanced degrees. I felt left behind.
ReplyDeleteAnd I even quit my job to go back to school to finish out the degree that I had started. I wasn't happy with it at all. I was just trying to measure what success was by everyone else. I didn't realize that I was already pretty successful, I made good money and enjoyed what I did and even met my future husband (I didn't know it, but he somehow knew). As crazy as it sounds, I was pretty darn successful in the Middle East. So I quit school again to go back to the Middle East and my future husband was there again. We got married on our R&R came back to Iraq, and even though I had to start from scratch when we returned to the States, finally, I was happy, and I wasn't worried about trying to measure up other people's successes.
We're in Baumholder, Germany now and I have a good job and I'm also going to school full-time. I changed my major from Political Science to Corporate Communication. People told me that changing it Communication would be a mistake--I should go into nursing or social work but it's not about them. It's about me and what works for me. And knowing that my husband supports my independence is all that matters.
So don't worry about other people, ma. Your journey is your journey, not theirs. And if anyone has a problem with you making your own decisions, then tell them to go kick rocks because it's your life. I wish you all the luck in the world :)
Just being is effing hard, harder than a person would think it would be. when you're trying to just be you remember that you're legs aren't shaved, the plants aren't watered and the cable bill is three days late, and that there are rotting strawberries in the fridge. And that's about when the itching starts. Good luck with it!
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