I’m feeling unlovely, unintelligent, and unfocused. Like a ship wandering around a sea with no map or guides or even purpose to it, ungainly in the water and suffering the sloppy waves that threaten to tip me over.
It’s time for me to take a “retreat” and decide what my future course of action will be. It’s been a long time since I set goals and went after them in a determined way.
I graduated last year, and I have not been idle, but neither have I been productive. My list of things I *want* to do is actually quite huge, but that makes it unwieldy, and so I need to prioritize. Nor have I spent any energy in looking at the kind of life I want to be living next year…or in two years, in five years. Ten years???? Whoa.
But there are things I can do.
My good friend Madison and I were talking about planning for the future under the duress of stressful lives, and she mentioned her “vision board” in her office that is a collage of quotes, pictures, and other items that both inspire and guide her towards the life she wants to live.
Danielle LaPorte, one of those popular online lifestyle gurus, I think did hit upon a neat concept with her “Desire Map”, which is focused on charting your future based on how you want to feel and the kind of person you want to be (as opposed to materialistic goals, for instance).
And of course there is the ever-present “To-Do List” and calendar.
My ideas for goals, while plenty, have been skittering around in my brain since I graduated. Getting my master’s degree was both a goal and an escape; coming out of a 14 year marriage and many years of self-destructive behavior, I used it as a way to propel myself forward and to distract myself from asking bigger questions, such as the ever annoying, “What the hell are you doing????”
Now that I’m a year out from having graduated, that question is looming rather large.
There are the immediate issues, like rent and this cavity-ridden tooth I need to get fixed, and I need to make the choices that will make sure those responsibilities/needs are met. That’s a given.
Beyond that, though, I have 1000 things that could own my time and energy, and I don’t have 1000 hours in the day to devote to them. I have a sense of urgency that wars constantly with my sense of perfectionism, and that conflict tends to lead to inaction.
2013 has been a good year, over all, but I’m feeling the lack of direction very acutely.
This weekend I’m going to unplug and meditate and make lists and stomp around the house and try to figure things out. Maybe I’ll write out a personal vision statement, craft a vision board, create my own version of a desire map, or something similar. All I know for sure is that at this point, any plan is better than no plan at all.