What is "lost"?

The dictionary definition of lost is, "unable to find one's way; not knowing one's whereabouts."  

When I use the term lost, my meaning is "the inability to find one's way due to the inability to recognize one's true self."  

I have looked at myself and my life as a giant puzzle.  All of the pieces were there, I just didn't quite know how to put them all together.  Which is absurd, right?  Puzzle pieces are designed to fit.  You just have to take the time to align them.  I didn't view my puzzle pieces as fitting though.  That's where the confusion set in.  What belonged?  What didn't?  Why didn't they fit?  And just when I felt like I had figured it all out, because I had felt complete and peaceful at different times in my life, something new entered my life and I felt like I had to take the puzzle apart and start over, instead of building upon what was already there.

You know what that is?  A weak foundation.  

(I actually do know now that I have a strong foundation.  It is a very strong foundation that has weathered many storms.  However, when you don't have a strong sense of self, you lack the ability to recognize what is sitting right in front of you, just like I lacked the ability to put the puzzle pieces together.  They were all there.  They have always been there.  Perception is key.  Identity is power.  Authenticity is bravery.

Not having a strong sense of self is not an attractive quality.  I am not going to beat myself up here, I am aware that I do possess many attractive qualities, but that just isn't wasn't one of them.  I can also imagine how frustrating it could be to be with and love someone who is unsure of themselves. I am positive that played a significantly negative role in my relationships.  Being wishy-washy with my identity made it easier to be a people pleaser because it is a breeding ground for a lack of boundaries.  I can now also see the type of people who are attracted to people like me like I used to be.)

Props that I do need to give to myself is that despite feeling "lost" for so much of my life, part of the reason I felt lost was because I was searching.  You don't feel lost if you don't go anywhere.  I have always been moving, learning, and growing.  But you don't know what you don't know.  There was so much that I didn't know about myself and who I was am and why I was am the way that I am.  It does make sense now.  The puzzle pieces fit and it is such a satisfying and empowering place to finally be.  But what a wild ride to get there!

Let's Back Up a Bit

After rereading my last post, I wanted to go back and clarify my position on feeling "lost."  Truth be told, I had felt "lost" for quite a long time, it wasn't just after my mom passed that it emerged.  This blog was essentially birthed from my desire to find myself after the death of my first husband. 

 In the first two years of this blog, I posted over 260 times and during that time I was also seeing a therapist.  I was working on myself.  I was spilling my thoughts.  I was trying to make sense of things.  I was trying to figure out who I was at that time.  In the summer of 2013, I stopped seeing my therapist.  I felt that I was in a position where I outgrew her.  Perhaps I should have continued therapy with a new therapist, but I was feeling good.  Stronger.  More secure.  I put so much to rest and felt so much more at peace and while I was not completely healed (is that even possible?) I believed that I was in a good enough place to move on, and I still believe that.  I met John in November of that year and I moved on.

However, it didn't take long for that "lost" feeling to reemerge.  In January of 2016, I said goodbye to this blog and began a new one.  Looking back at those posts from that new blog,  it was about living and loving life.  I was positive.  I was engaged and planning a wedding.  I was happy.  

It was just after the wedding, in October of 2016, that it was confirmed what my siblings and I thought about my mom, early onset Alzheimer's.  She was only 62 and had just retired that summer.  It was an excruciating diagnosis.  That same fall, my son began to have problems in school.  He was having a tough go with his emotions.  He had been sent to the guidance counselor a few times, one time I had to pick him up early because he had scratched his own face so badly (yep... he was turning his emotions inward and I cannot even begin to tell you how terrifying that was).  He started to see an outside therapist. Oh, and my best friend was diagnosed with cancer.  

It was not an easy time. I actually found meditation in the spring of 2017.  I took an 8-week weekly (in-person) workshop.  (This will become more significant as I catch up more with more up-to-date posts.)  I was recently married to my amazing (as I had so often referred to the person that I would eventually end up with here on this blog) and felt that I was OKAY, just everyone around me seemed to be falling apart (hadn't that happened before?).

In December of 2018 (weeks after turning 40, which was difficult for me) I started yet another blog.  This one was titled, "Discovering Your WAY" where WAY stood for "Who Are You."  YEP... I was lost.  I had lost myself again.  I knew that I had, yet I didn't really know that I had.  

That blog focused on running, traveling, maintaining friendships, living in NYC, yoga, meditation, healthy living... all of the things that were important to me then (they still are today) but I think what I was searching for was a way to combine all of these things that I loved, that were important to me and make some sort of sense of them.  They all seemed so random and disconnected.  I think now that it was just me.   I just felt disconnected... from myself, from others, from everything.    

(So to say that I felt "lost" began in 2021 is not completely accurate.  It was knocking at my door in 2018.  It just busted the door in 2021.

Ironically, the last post before this most recent resurrection was dated May 16, 2018.  I reread it and the significant events of 2017-2018 are what I just posted in this post and then some.  I have documentation that I was in a tough place and ultimately by the end of the year, when I started that new blog, I felt lost.)   

What's Wrong with Me?

 It was almost exactly three years ago when something began to feel not right.  I wasn't sure what it meant or even where it came from but it was a feeling that emerged from deep within and became impossible to ignore.  

It was in April of that same year, only months prior, that my mother passed away.  By June, I couldn't help but think, "This is it.  This is my life?"  I had no idea where this was coming from.  I had never thought or even felt that way before my mother's passing. So in the beginning I tried to push those feelings back down telling myself it was some sort of mid-life crisis awakening due to the reality of losing a parent.  

I didn't tell my husband these feelings that I was having.  I couldn't explain them.  I didn't know where they were coming from and I knew even then that I couldn't just say those words to him.  He would have taken them very personally and I didn't want to hurt him.  At that time, I didn't think it had anything to do with my marriage. 

Other than the heartache of losing my mom, life was good.  Very good.  My husband was my best friend.  We got along.  We laughed.  We went out on dates.  We took awesome vacations as a family and just as a couple.  My relationship with my family was good.  We became even closer during the sickness that overtook my mom.  I had friends.  My son... he was healthy and doing well.  I didn't have much to complain about.  

When those feelings would not stay buried, I turned them against myself.  "What is wrong with me?"  I have always been on a quest for self-growth through self-help books, quotes, and practices (this blog) but this seemed different.  It became more of an obsession.  I was too old to feel so "lost" and unsure of myself and my inability to identify what was bothering me so much and why.  

This was the beginning of my truest and most authentic journey to self-discovery... and it was also the beginning to the end of my marriage.  

(This is a prime example of me being a people pleaser.  I put his feelings above my own.  I have no doubt that he would not have reacted in a supportive way, but what I have also learned is that I controlled the situation by not expressing myself.  I didn't give him a chance to react either way.  Essentially I manipulated the situation.  That is such a hard truth to swallow.  It never occurred to me that what I was doing was wrong.  It was a natural reaction for me to keep the peace and it was never done with bad intention.  I didn't realize that my intention didn't necessarily matter, the impact that it made was not positive and it took me 45 years of life to learn that.)