How Did I Get Here?

“It was like my soul had died a death by one thousand paper cuts."

I promise you, I didn’t sit down one day and say, “I know. Wouldn’t it be cool to make a series of life decisions such that I wake up in my early 50’s single, unemployed and a stranger in a strange land?”

It might be hard to believe, but it wasn’t my plan to end up in this place of “a little bit lost” as a friend gently put it. 

In fact, most of my major life decisions, at least at the time, had the guise of certainty and a certain degree of ambition to get me any place but here. 

So how did I get so lost?

I began dissecting my life the way a pathologist might review a dead body.  I suppose, I hoped, that if I could pin point how I ended up here then I could retrace my steps to get back on track again.

Of course, the question is what exactly is the dis-ease I am trying to eradicate?  How can I find it if I can’t even name it?

My therapist, I suppose, would frame it as, “What emotions am I not allowing myself to feel?”

Am I bored? No.

Am I lonely? Not particularly.

Am I trapped in some emotionally or financially oppressive situation?  Thankfully not.

Then the word drops.

Compromise.

“Huh, that’s weird.  I wasn’t expecting that.”

I sat with the word.

I feel compromised???

That’s when I saw it.

Most of my major life decisions felt like they were made in service of something other than what my heart really and truly wanted for itself.

I went to Georgetown because I was waitlisted at Columbia.

I studied Economics because I didn’t get into the School of Foreign Service.

I started my career in Tech because it allowed me to live in Hong Kong.

I bought a hotel because it allowed me to work and be a stay-at-home mom.

The list could go on.

Even my major relationships had aspects that if I was completely honest with myself were not exactly, “what the princess had always wanted for herself.”

However, not once it appeared, did I ever make a major decision based on, “God, I so want this for myself.” 

It was then that the tears began to flow.  Hot and heavy. 

“Hey, look at me, for once I’m crying without having to pay a therapist.”

It doesn’t mean that there weren’t some good things that came out of those choices. 

There were always aspects of my decisions that honored some true part of myself.

It also doesn’t mean there are any guarantees I’d be any better off had I “chosen door B”.

Still, coming face to face with one’s own self-betrayal is not easy.

It was like my soul had died a death by one thousand paper cuts.

It’s like I loved the country AND the city but couldn’t pick one and can’t live in both so I ended up in the suburbs.

Uggh. That’s it. My life feels like the suburbs. Does anyone love the suburbs or do we just end up there “for the good schools.”

Maybe that’s why I ran away to Portugal to convince myself that I wasn’t going to die in the metaphoric suburbs.

I’d found the first clue to my stuckness.

How could I answer the question “now what”? if I’d been conditioned to accept the suburbs.

If I’d never truly given myself permission to make choices for myself apart from anyone else’s needs, desires or expectations.

I realize one could say that every life is that.  A series of compromises.  Does anyone really get to “have it all.” Maybe I’m just spoiled.

Why then does compromise feel so confronting?

Maybe my dis-ease is in part a symptom of being part of a generation of women that were told we could have it all: the career, the kids, the great relationship, the creative life.

If that is the promise - if that was our birthright - is it any wonder that I’m feeling “just a little bit lost.” Where exactly is this promised land?

But can we really?  Have it all, I mean. How can you be a CNN war correspondent AND be there for your daughter’s dance recitals?

(I quickly made a note to myself to research if there are any female war correspondents with kids.)

Is it possible to compromise without feeling like you’re giving up or shoving under the bed an essential part of yourself?

I dig out an old poem from my writing box.  The place I’ve put scraps and snippets of my writings over the years that never felt good enough to share with the world.

I have a little voice
She’s calling to me now.
She says, I deserve
She doesn’t crave brash ego things – cars and flashy homes and shiny rings
I deserve she says: joy, respect, passion, purpose, wholeness
I find these in the quiet places
I deserve she says
Her voice is quiet not out of fear but of weakness because she’s been quiet for so long
Silenced by the shoulds, wants and needs of others
I have a little voice
Hear me now

The poem I realize is ten years old. Clearly this dis-ease has been going on for awhile. I just wasn’t paying attention. Who has the time?!?

I realize why the poem is in the box of “stuff I should not share” and back it goes.

Before I do, the word wholeness jumps out at me. 

Perhaps that’s what I’m struggling with. How did I come to feel like I’m a character in someone else’s play? Like I’m playing a role - or perhaps many roles - but not really myself.

What would it look like to have a life where I felt wholly and authentically me?

What disowned dreams or parts of me are shoved under the bed in a box of “things I should not share” screaming to get out?