Lost and not found

“sometimes you need to step outside, get some air and remind yourself of who you are and who you want to be”

I have been thinking about this quote a lot today, and I think its advice is just what I needed. Apart from the going outside bit. After some careful consideration I decided standing outside in minus 15 degree temperatures, in a snow drift, sliding around like Bambi on ice while trying to avoid being taken out by the garden fence that is totally coming down, would neither remind me of who I am or of who I want to be ..other than still alive and in the warmth. What I did need to do, however, was take a deep breath, focus and find myself.

Sometimes it is so easy to lose ourselves in the chaos of everyday life. In the stress of deciding what to make for dinner or arguing over revision goals and expectations with the teenager. It’s easy to drown in the pile of to do lists, each a mile long, that state in black and white all of the things I need to accomplish in order to be a good wife, mother, teacher and person in general. It’s far too easy to be so focused and overwhelmed with becoming the person you feel the world expects you to be that you lose yourself completely.

As my family keeps reminding me I am getting old(er) and one thing that keeps hitting me is how quickly time passes and how fast life changes. Nothing stays the same for very long. It doesn’t seem two minutes ago I took my first ever job in a school and just recently one of the students served me in a shop!. I have never felt so old!. They do also say however, that you know you’re getting old when the police officers start looking younger than you, thankfully the husband will always be older than me so there is still hope yet. Life does change quickly though, and those changes do change who we are as people, and our roles in society and life in general.

When my Dad passed away I felt like I lost myself and my purpose and if I am totally honest I don’t think I have found it again yet. I am a wife and a mum but the husband and the teenager don’t need me in the same ways my Dad did. I actually don’t think the teenager would even notice I wasn’t hear until dinner time, and even then he’s more than capable of making himself something to eat, although I have never known anyone make as much mess as he makes making a pot noodle.

I don’t know if it is purely the super long lasting grief I still feel for my Dad that makes me doubt my purpose in life or if it is the epilepsy and the ways it damages my confidence in my own abilities?. I can’t really put my finger on what it is that makes me feel like I have lost myself or like I am not needed. No matter how many times I read that quote to myself today I was not able to find myself, mainly because you can’t find something if you have no idea where you might have lost it in the first place. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack!

So there we have it, after a full day of soul searching all I have managed to do is trigger a good couple of coughing fits while doing some deep breathing. Maybe you really do need to be outside to find yourself. If that is the case my soul searching is going to have to wait until the snow is gone because I am not in that much of a rush to find myself that I am willing to freeze my posterior off while I go looking!!!.