May 11, 2015 by Amy

Lost and Found

Evidently I shouldn’t wake up at 5:30 a.m. fuming about something and then go shoot my mouth off on my blog. Because it comes across as rude and mean-spirited. Maybe. That’s how I’m reading it today, anyway. So let’s just forget that ever happened.

I read an article this weekend about a woman who “threw away” her life in order to find herself. She was engaged and had purchased a new home with her fiancee and had a good job with benefits, when suddenly she decided that she wasn’t happy. She didn’t know why exactly, but she knew that she wouldn’t find happiness until she ditched the fiancee and house and the stable life and found herself. I read this with interest, because I’m always intrigued about this notion of finding one’s self. Most people don’t ever, so I like to read about those who do.

As I usually do when I read these types of essays, I compared her words and her experience to my own life. Usually I find at least one thought that resonates, whether it’s “look at ways to incorporate your passion into your life every day” or “pare down your commitments to the essentials that truly make you happy” or other such “go forth and prosper” missives.

At first, I thought that this essay missed the mark entirely. I could not relate to a single one of her thoughts or decisions. I don’t want or need to leave the man in my life to find happiness; he brings it to me. I didn’t have a child to fill some sort of societal expectation; we expanded our family because we felt it was right for us. I love the home we live in, which is good since we designed the whole damn thing. There’s nowhere to run. There’s no need to run.

I suppose this means that I have found myself, if I ever lost myself to begin with. Which is an interesting “chicken or the egg” conundrum. I don’t really know how to answer that. I think at some points in my life I felt a bit lost. Changing majors in college (a vast swing from engineering to journalism) was unsettling. Being kicked out of my parents’ house left me unmoored for a time. Navigating newlyweddedness with no self interests while my husband had plenty was eye-opening. But if I had to do it all over again, I would. Those periods of loss and confusion only served to help me truly figure out who I wanted to be, helped me become who I am.

So it’s good to lose yourself sometimes, so long as you always find your way back home.

Also, M hung all my prints and posters in my home office this weekend, which makes me so damn happy I could spit. The room is nearly finished…I’m just waiting for the St. Louis IKEA to open so I can buy a desk chair instead of stealing one from the dining room table. I absolutely love that little space of mine, that room of my own. It’s my home within my home, and it’s there that I can find myself again and again.  

(Thanks, hubby, for all your hard work to help me create a space that makes me so happy!)