What I notice, when I glance through them on occasion, is that for most of those years I scheduled myself crazy. Literally, perhaps, since in 1996 there were weekly "therapist" entries for several months. I remember the depression, the overwhelming feelings of worthlessness, the near constant crying. Well, not constant exactly, because I apparently still led workshops, volunteered in my kids' classrooms, sat on committees all over town, helped oversee a major remodel on our home, helped my mother move from Illinois to Washington after my dad died...little things interspersed between counseling sessions.
Just over a year ago, shortly after the new year of 2011, I sat in front of the fireplace during a meeting of my women's group and burned a replica of my calendar. I had just had a very significant "wake up call".
(**NOTE: My women's group meets twice a month to focus on "personal work" -- meaning we meet to offer support and challenge to each other on our life's paths. What makes us think, feel, and do what we think, feel, and do? Does it serve us to stay stuck in a certain pattern? If not, how can we break free? How can we help shift the paradigm that no longer serves us?)
I had just been facilitated by one of the Sue's in a process of looking at my absolutely crazy-making pattern of over-committing and over-scheduling my life. At one point, I was challenged to let go of some of the things I was involved in. I agreed wholeheartedly, then when further challenged to name which things would go, I began to negotiate and rationalize why I had to hang onto most of the things on my "to do" list of commitments. Suddenly it struck me....I was like an addict; powerless over my calendar and my inner need to be needed, feel important, feel productive, and like my life had meaning beyond just "being". I was all about "doing" to be of worth.
Why? Maybe because when I was a child, children were to be "seen and not heard". I felt invisible and ignored when I was "good" and I was never "bad"...that was a job for my brothers, who were perhaps braver than I in rebelling at the age appropriate time. So as an adult, I lived my "goodness" to the extreme -- maybe for the notice and recognition and respect I'd always craved. (There...that's what "personal work" looks like -- although it takes longer and is much messier.)
I realized in a sudden flash of recognition that I had to "burn my calendar", clear the dates, and start over. Nothing scheduled. Blank space. How did that feel? Was I of less worth? Did my life have less meaning? Could I still be seen, accepted, and appreciated if I didn't fill my time with do-gooder duties? Scary stuff.
Since then, and now retired from my job, I've completely reorganized my time and how I "spend" it. Instead of retirement freeing me up to do more, I've decided to do even less. I have a handful of activities and commitments that are meaningful to me. And I have a lot of blank dates on my calendar. I occasionally have a concern that this new slower pace falls stereotypically into the "getting older", "less energy" category. But it really doesn't feel that way to me at all. It just feels like I am finally taking responsibility for pacing my life in a way that feels full, satisfying, and not crazy-making busy. It feels like I'm living now how I wish I had ALWAYS lived, regardless of age. I'm finally just happy being...even if I'm not always doing.
At least, that's the view from here...©
**Interested in more info on "personal work" and a life-changing experience? Check this out: http://www.ww-wc.org/woman-within-weekend
You have expressed my sentiments exactly and I am not going to try to say any of it any better than you did. I just want to make a comment about that missing year because I had to laugh as I remembered a question my son once asked me.
ReplyDeleteWhen my daughter was born her daddy was overseas. I took picture after picture, wanting him to see how she was growing. (For those of you who might be much younger than me, this was back in the days when you took a picture that was placed on film that you had to take to the fotomat to have developed, a process that had to wait until all 36 pictures were taken and could sometimes get sort of pricey. No email to attach them to, either!) So, consequently, there are oodles of pictures of the first baby.
Baby #2, my gorgeous little boy, came along two years later. Daddy was home by then. Not only did I have my 2-year-old and a newborn, but I was also taking care of another 2-year-old and an 18-month old, to make a little extra cash. There were no photo ops, no moments when the camera was sitting right there on the coffee table, no time or energy to fool with things like that.
One day, as we were going through photo albums and we had looked at all of her baby pictures, he turned to me with a very concerned look on his face and solemnly said, "Mom, was I an ugly baby?" I was taken aback and said, "No, sweetheart, you were a gorgeous child. Why would you think that??" That was when he pointed out that his baby pictures occupied a few pages, not an entire album.
Oops.