Wednesday

Well, happily the anxiety built up in my head was greater than what the reality warranted, anxiety being the product of lack of communication from my doctor. Everyone was extraordinarily nice (and informative.) And a friend had calmed me down before I left work earlier in the day.

Afterward I went to this monthly mixer event and then to the Daniil Trifonov piano concert. I didn't know I was a fan of piano music, but he was spellbinding.

After writing yesterday's post, I received an email from a friend where she mentioned how liberating it had been for her to go to an all-women spa and be naked with women of all shapes and sizes. A bit of synchronicity.

When I was younger, I used to want someone (God, maybe?) to tell me what I should "do with my life." I joked with someone once that I wanted to see it writen in large letters in the sky. And I feel like I've wandered around my life lost, looking for a purpose externally. Thinking about what I could do that was "worthy" to add to the world. Maybe I should be a teacher or a doctor or a field scientist or a nutritionist...and they are all worthy, but they were also all "shoulds" as opposed to "wants," and how long can we sustain a life build on "shoulds?" And I've often felt panic over this "lack of solid career goals." Graduating from college is the only societal hoop I've ever jumped through.  At some point, maybe 10 years ago, can't remember, I decided I would find one thing I wanted, and let myself want that, and let myself do that thing (I believed at the time that wanting anything for myself was being selfish, and being selfish was wrong.) That thing was joining a choir, and the only reason I joined was because the director at the time invited me, and I've always been grateful to him for it. And I hung onto the purity of the motivation a long time, there were no because or ifs or shoulds attached to it. I wasn't trying to prove anything to myself or anyone else, I wasn't trying to strive or get anything, I just did it because I liked it. And so what I've been thinking about (yesterday) was that what we are meant to do or to be is already inside of us. We can ask for help to look inside, to listen to ourselves, or for help in seeing what our gifts and talents are, but in the end, that's where we find our purpose. I know that this idea is in books and seminars and classes and therapy already, but it wasn't always real to me. I didn't value what I had to offer the world, but I'm working on it. I thought that because I didn't have money, or influence, hadn't build a career, or wasn't some amazing prodigy, or hadn't found the thing I wanted to work hard at (I'm capable of this if I want to do it) that I didn't have anything to offer the world. And what I'm coming to realize is that the world needs all of our gifts, needs them now. That none are of anymore value than any other, regardless of what I hear externally of what is of value. The gifts of others that transformed my life were not grand gestures, so why judge myself so harshly? And I know this idea has been spoken of for hundreds of years, and plenty of people already know this, but it's not real until it's real to you, and suddenly this idea has begun to be real for me.