The journey of a lifetime has ended and I am back. Home, in the most literal sense, as I type these words from the Laura Ashley Doll room of my teenage years, I can’t help but to lament.
Living at my parents now for just over 30 days and I am starting to feel like I have done something wrong. Made a mistake. Joined the League of Losers that can’t take care and throw themselves onto the only people that will take pity upon them, parents.
I somehow feel redundant. I have done this before and I am not supposed to be doing it again. Like the snippets of conversation I overheard in a public restroom,
“How long does Fleet Week last?” Or “I like biographical biographies.”
I am repeating myself in a stupid and repetitive way. Like those snippets that are easily recognized by the receiver yet lost on the speaker, unless pointed out. And once done so, even in a fun loving way, makes the speaker feel like a trapped teenager whose timing is off and can’t recover quickly enough to laugh it off, and thus gets caught up in embarrassment and shame at being dumb. Yet that was not the intent in the first place.
I am meant to do great things.
Did you know this about me? I think you do. I feel it from many, in both a supportive and expectant way. I feel it from myself even more. Yet what are those great things? Did I just accomplish this by traveling around the world? Was that great? Many people seem to think I did great things, by volunteering in different countries, yet I still don’t feel like I have done something that is a big WOW. A definite difference that has made the world a better place.
And now, I am home. Off and running in a new direction, yet one that is definitely not a big WOW.
I am following another dream I have always had of being a waitress. People often pause after I tell them this, trying to decide if I am being snarky. Or they laugh, typically followed by a shrug and respond with something along the lines of You are great with people, or You do LOVE food. Yet now, there is reaction that gives me pause. People seem let down. They answer with a Really or Oh. In those instances, I quickly follow it up with that I will be looking into the nonprofit sector and hope to start on a new career there.
Or is it me who is giving myself pause? Is it I who is let down? I feel stress creeping in on me tangling with disappointment. Where is the big WOW!? The GREAT things I am to do?
During my travels I had hoped to get clarity on my next career. To find something that made me excited, hopeful, powerful, and passionate. Something I could throw myself into and in the process, do something great for the world and give back for all the greatness I have been given.
I did get clarity; just not on the topic I wanted. I found that, more than anything, I want to be a mother.
And while traveling that felt beautiful, yet being home, reality has set in and it just feels remote and unrealistic.
I don’t have a partner. I don’t have medical insurance. I don’t have my own residence. I don’t have a job that supports one, nonetheless, two. I don’t have the means to provide that which I believe every human should have the right to begin their life in this world with.
And that feels scary and sad.
But what I do have is a community of friends and family that make all my dreams come true. I do have a foundation of love, strength, belief in myself, founded by my parents, and built upon by friends and family, that teaches me that I will do great things- yet maybe just one step at a time. I do have friends that listen to me, and help me find the beauty that started me out on the path that became too cloudy and overcast to navigate without guidance.
So, I live at my parents. I have a job with an unsteady income. I have dreams yet to accomplish.
And, I have all of you. I have GREAT things that will make way for me to DO great things.
