I have been feeling a little unmotivated lately. Well, pretty much hopeless, as a matter of fact. I have been thinking alot about where I am in my life, the road that led me here, and where it is I really want to be. Let me first clarify that I love my family. I love them so much that it literally hurts sometimes. I have a husband that, even though life and relationships are hard, I know we were supposed to end up on this journey together. I have 2 boys that if I could freeze them in time and re-live the same day with them over and over again, I would be happy until the end of time. But sometimes I feel like they are all I have. Now, I know what you are thinking, "Of course you have so much more, you have a beautiful home, great friends, financial security, and the knowledge that you are a Beloved Daughter of Heavenly Father, blah, blah, blah...." I can recognize all of these things and I get it that that should all be enough. I should be happy that I have "won" this game of life that destiny set me up to fail at, but lately what I always considered to be a success has felt more like a failure.
I didn't grow up feeling like I had limitless potential to succeed in life. Most of my adolescent life I felt like I would be a considered a success if I made it through my teenage years without getting pregnant, ending up addicted to drugs, and living in a trailer the rest of my life. The guidance that I did receive from family influences, church leaders, and outside examples made me believe that my best route was to grow up, find a good guy, get married, have children, buy a nice house, make money, and live happily ever after. I never realized that I could actually do whatever it is was that I WANTED to do. I could join the Peace Corp and serve others all over the world for years before even thinking about getting married. My husband and I could bypass getting a "good" job, buying a house, and joining the same rat race as the rest of the world and live all over the world for free on farming communities where we learn all the skills necessary to be self-sustaining while being enriched by the people we come in contact with. I could go to school, learn about something I ENJOY, and actually get paid to do it! The only thing I ever knew that I wanted to do and believed that I would actually be good at it was be a Mother. I am doing that and I LOVE it, but I realize that there is so much more that I could be doing and so much about my life that I could change to make it my own dream come true. I just feel like I am in too deep in this life that we have created for ourselves that doing what we actually WANT to be doing is just too hopeless. Or maybe I am just not willing to give up who I am to become who I want to be and I just need someone to blame for that. Maybe I should just be content with what I have achieved in life, do what I can to improve it, and teach my boys that they really can do whatever it is they want, they can be whoever they want to be and their success will be my success. Hopefully if I can successfully teach them that message, that will fill up this nagging sense of failure inside of me. Or maybe, one day, I will fill it up myself by discovering my place in the world, figuring out something I am actually good at it that will inspire or help those around me and that will make me feel content and valuable. But not tomorrow. Thursdays are floor cleaning days, I won't have time for anything else.
