keep calm and carry on

I started writing something last night and three hours in my husband had to stop me because I had started weeping. It was the kind of crying where the tears are like a leaking faucet and they just don't stop. It wasn't pretty. I am not sure what triggered this kind of response from me. Perhaps it was the culmination of a long and trying week. Maybe it was PMS. Might have been the 2, 4, 6, shot I don't know, but look at the mess I am in.... {Sorry, couldn't help myself.}

In the end, I kept the post. It's one for the private vault. Just for me, to read again when I need that kind of purge. The problem is that all day I have been analyzing my feelings about it and keep coming back to this part.

I have moments lately where I look at myself and I wonder if I really do know myself. Do I know what my purpose in life is and am I living that fully? How exactly am I making my mark?

A lot of questions I know. Yes, I am a mother and I am making my mark by moulding the minds of these two little people in my care, and that is the single greatest (and scariest) responsibility and privilege in my life. Perhaps it is because I am not as young as I used to be and that feeling of “Go forth and DO something BIG and meaningful” seems to be slipping away as the years go by. Maybe this is a normal kind of thing that happens to people when our own parents die. We see their lives, their regrets, the things that they wish they had done differently and wonder if we too will be on our death beds, asking for forgiveness, wishing we had done more, trying to find peace, hoping it was all enough.

For some crazy reason, lately I feel like I am not doing that something big and meaningful that I am supposed to be doing. There is a floundering feeling floating around me and it really, really sucks. I feel like it is keeping me from being me, and also keeping me away from friends and those who care about me because I can't handle the simple questions of how I am and what I am doing now.

Tonight I read this post from Katherine Stone and her words struck me deeply.

Thinking you need to be a hero or change the world or make great strides or save lives or revolutionize things sounds impossible. Those things seem like things only special people, only heroes can do. You’re not fearless like that! To be fierce, though, sometimes all you have to do is limp across.

I think with this new space of mine, I put some rather high expectations on myself and I am afraid that I am disappointing not only you, my readers, but also myself. I am not though, am I? I forgot for a few minutes who I am and who I write for. I don't write posts for brands or sponsors or reviews of this or that. I don't write controversial posts just for pageviews (trust me on that one). I write for me. I write for connection with you. I write as a way to do that meaningful something or other.

This space is a work in progress. As am I. And as such, I am giving myself a break. No, not from writing. From expecting to write huge feminist manifestos and diatribes about how far we have come and how much farther we still have to go. I am giving myself a break from feeling like I have to somehow be a hero and save the world from itself.

So like the story in Katherine's post, I am going to limp my way forward into this and along the way, I know that my purpose, my raison d'etre will reveal itself.

I think I just need to take a few breaths and calm the f^*k down a bit first.

{BIG deep breath}

natasha~