Back here after 12 years or more. And why am I back? I shocked myself today when I couldn't find a direct answer to a direct question: "If you had all the time and could do what you wanted with it for the next week, what time would you prefer to sleep, and what time would you prefer to wake up?"
I still don't know. I think I might want to sleep in, but a list of things to do in the morning intrudes. I think I might wake up early, but I realize we are a family of late sleepers. I cannot wrap my head around the concept of having full control over all my time.
It's been happening more and more lately. I ask myself a simple question. I don't receive an answer, only a list of considerations. I set myself a task that has only to do with me, but I realize that these tasks don't exist in a vacuum. Other factors and responsibilities, other lives and their priorities, touch everything in my life and priorities. Would I change that if I could? No, for those lives are as precious to me as my own.
But there are jungles of words, actions, expectations, and responsibilities around me. Jungles I get tired of navigating, paths that exhaust me, destinations that don't mean much to me. There are times I don't allow myself to feel, times I don't allow myself to say what I think. I listen, I respond within the set parameters of expected responses, I do what needs to be done.
Is this how I lost myself? Under the layers of what I need to do and how I am expected to conduct myself, is there still a hidden kernel of what I want to do, how I want to conduct my life? Will I find out what I have become over time, or will I stay lost?
