Treasure Map: My Journey Home

I had a good chat with my friend MJ last night - too short as always, but still very revealing. I listened to myself speak and felt wave after wave roll though me as I confided my uncertainty and sense of longing when it comes to writing. I continue to have this need for a destination, a need for something more. My life is wonderful and yet I still crave something - and the missing ingredient far too often is me.

I can fill lots of roles, meet any kind of external expectation but when it comes to me, I feel a bit lost. Furthermore, I find that "lostness" hard to confide but there is no point to denying it because it is always threading its way through my writing and my conversations.

When I first sold my business and a few months before becoming pregnant with Baby S, my husband asked me, "So what's the plan?" I know I could have made up a bunch of possible plans in a heartbeat, but none of them would have meant anything. My answer; "There is no plan." Why, because I have lived with a plan for so long, usually reflecting someone else's expectations, that I felt I needed to discover what it is to live without a goal, at least for awhile.

Well, I'm not liking it much, I can tell you that! And yet, I can't betray myself once again by entertaining the thought of committing to a plan that doesn't fully reflect me. And so I continue to wait for clarity to arrive while I test various directions, trying them out to see how they feel.

I keep coming back to writing. Writing is where my true self lives. It is where I can find myself in the mist of a day full of the cries of a teething baby, the needs of my older son and the myriad of things I have willingly taken on to support my family. Writing is the place where I emerge, where I begin to remember the wholeness of me. I'm not mommy or wife or friend or organizer here. I'm just me. I might be a mixed up, bone tired me - but I'm still 100% me.

My conversation with MJ last night highlighted my sense of disconnection and underscored why I continue to write. This blog is my breadcrumb trail back to me. Its the evidence that I continue to exist and its fulfills my desire to be seen in the world. When asked about why writing a book is important to me I discovered its because I want to be heard somewhere other than in my own head. I also want a conversation that isn't distilled to just a few lines but that can grow and evolve over a longer stretch, even if it is conceived in little snippets.

Before any of that can happen, I have to show up more completely in my own life. I hadn't realized how I had begun to shrink. Back to the body image stuff - it would seem that my increasing girth is inversely proportional to my shrinking presence these days. I'm falling into old habits as I make new friends. I'm pulling myself back and diluting my intensity in both fun and serious matters.

And where does that leave me at this moment? I'll keep you posted because this is what I believe my book is about - uncertainty. Between uncertainty and a precise goal there is a whole range of experiences, possibilities and discoveries to be made. Since I am journeying through this territory, I have decided to begin creating a map as I pass though self doubt to self trust, from static old identity to one that is in constant flux and the many other destinations that have yet to be uncovered. This map will be a record of my journey and perhaps offer a few sign posts to other explorers. I need to write it because its my treasure map back to me.