I wonder sometimes if I missed it…the moment when the future became somewhat of a reality worth reaching for again.
I don’t remember actively looking for it or fantasizing about it. It wasn’t in the day to day monotony of the last two years of my life. It wasn’t in the stagnation. It wasn’t in the delusional ideas of time traveling back to change the here and now. It certainly wasn’t in bed with me every night when I’d stare at the ceiling hoping for some solution to the question I had running through my head : What now?
It was there in every conversation I’d have, in every moment interacting with others, in every search on Trulia to find something that felt even somewhat close to “home”. I remember clearly realizing that I did not care if I was happy or not, that there was no point in finding the things that would fulfill me or help me push forward because they were pointless without someone to share them with. It was there when I begged and pleaded my life away and waited for an answer from a universe that simply whispered “no” over and over. What now?
Then slowly, without even realizing it, the future started to take shape. I realized suddenly, violently, that I’d been asking the wrong question. It wasn’t “what now?” it was “what do I want?” and the world simply exploded with that realization. I hadn’t stopped and taken myself into consideration at all. I hadn’t had the opportunity to see myself as the main puzzle piece in my own life. I’d spent so long trying to appease everyone else and sooth everyone else’s fears that I’d completely and utterly lost myself. And then I just was. I stood looking back at myself in a mirror and realized that the hopes and dreams that have guided me my entire life were still ingrained in my very being and I had to start learning to connect with them again.
So maybe that’s the key….the cure if you will…the missing puzzle piece. You have to put yourself first. You have to figure out who you are first. I had to stop using You statements and start using I statements.
I’m still finding myself. I’m still finding my happiness. I’m still re-igniting my core. And I will get where I’m supposed to go as soon as I figure out what “supposed to” looks like.
