Excuse for a
moment while I give myself a round of applause, because you see, I’m a
survivor.
Moment over.
That
I am a survivor is a given at this point – I wake up daily without considering
that this day could be my last because I have lived beyond so much. I am in a
marriage with my own life: for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in
sickness, and in health, I been through it and come out the other side. For that,
I applaud myself. For the sheer tenacity with which I have gone from up to down
in my life, I say well done me.
Recently
however, I had a moment during which I wanted to smack myself upside my own
head. I realized that the purpose of my life is not about my survival. My life,
the one I am choosing as I go forward, is about my living with a purpose. The
option to continue waking up and moving through each day in survival mode still
yawns before me with all the attractiveness of a cheese sandwich. Can I eat the
cheese sandwich and continue living? Yes. Is it fulfilling? Does it teach me
anything? No and no, a cheese sandwich is a cheese sandwich. I want my life to
be more than cheese sandwich survival.
I
cannot say that if I’d only made this realization years ago, my life would have
been very different than it is today…because the person I was years ago, could
not have made that realization. The person I was years ago was invested in
making others happy and proud of me. As a youngest child, there was always
someone before me in line who was stronger, taller, smarter, cleverer, or more
accomplished. I was forever playing catch-up to a bar that was always rising.
When all else failed, my goal became just to make people happy. Y’all know
where this is going, so we’ll fast forward to what is important now.
At
this point, I’m starting to figure out a few things. First, I’m figuring out
what my purpose is. Oddly, my purpose is still what I thought my purpose was
years ago – writing and creating. I’m finding my strengths and trusting those
strengths more. I’m developing a courageous voice – fooled you, didn’t I? Some
of you, you know who you are, thought I had that in spades, I know. Truth was I
didn’t. The person you think I am does not speak those words, or in that tone.
Developing
a courageous voice for me is more than just the words I say or write. It’s
about speaking the truth, my truth, and trusting that what I feel to be right
just might be so. I have a catalog of decisions, events, and moments, for which
I wish that I had had a courageous voice. I wish that I had had enough of a
courageous voice to say, “That’s not going to work for me, no thanks.” The
courageous part is not just saying the words, but being able to back up the
words with the corresponding courageous actions, even if those actions are
simply living with the consequences of your words. I’m not sure I’ve lived that
level of authenticity yet; but I want to live it because this catalog grows
every year and it’s getting heavy.
In
a conversation last week, someone said to me, “I’m tired of making one way
compromises.” No, a one-way compromise is not a compromise, but that’s exactly
the point, isn’t it? It’s not a compromise if it’s just one way. It’s capitulation.
It’s surrender. Without a courageous voice, without courageous determination to
back up the words, capitulation becomes survival. Eventually, survival because
routine. Routine becomes meaningless, purposeless. A life without a purpose
that I choose is not a life I want. If I’m going to invest my life in these
days, I want to invest my days with authentic purpose.
The
danger for me now is to confuse impulse with purpose. As I design the life I
want, the impulse to run amok and throw caution to the wind is attractive.
There’s every possibility that I could make decisions from a contradictory position
– change for change’s sake. Maybe just realizing that the possibility exists
will prevent me from making a serious lapse in judgment. Or, maybe I will make
a lapse in judgment and have to live through it. I’m a survivor, after all.
On
my way to becoming a survivor, I’ve picked up a few skills, one of which is
beating back anxiety by catastrophizing. When I start worrying about a “what if,”
I ask myself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” For this technique to work,
the question is not rhetorical. I have to answer the question realistically. Including
the positive outcomes isn’t necessary to beat anxiety into submission; and, at
the end of the chain of catastrophes I envision, is always the chance that I
could die, much like WebMD and an inevitable cancer diagnosis.
Lately,
I’ve been playing with idea that I need to get away from my life. There’s a
timeframe coming up when a window is going to open, and if I wanted to, I could
take off. I’ve been tossing around the idea of renting a cottage in Ireland or
Scotland for a month or so, and going on my own. Admittedly, I have issues with
being alone. I’m not proficient at isolating myself, and already tossed the
idea of going on vacation to three other people. Because the idea of going on my
own raises anxiety for me, I’ve been catastrophizing it out. What’s the worst
that could happen?
- I could get lost.
- I might get lonely.
- I could run out of money.
- I could be attacked – by anything – person, dog, squirrel.
- I could miss something important in my kid’s life.
- My kid could get sick.
- Someone I love might need me.
- My plane could crash and…I would die.
There’s
one, potentially two, of those events that I wouldn’t survive. Still, I find it
difficult to break away from the idea that there’s safety in numbers and that I
could not go to Ireland or Scotland alone, even while writing about purpose and
courage. I could go alone, I remind myself, because I am a survivor. Moreover,
if I am going to choose a life with more than a cheese sandwich worth of
purpose, I am going to have to do more than survive. I’m going to have to find some
courage.
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