Motivation

Where has my motivation gone?

I don't care about anything other than people anymore. The people I love. Loving myself. That's all that matters to me right now.

A job? Who cares. My passion? I don't know. No, maybe I do know. My passion is people. My people. After losing my life with Dave, all I want is to surround myself with those I love and spend time gazing at them, listening to them talk, holding them and being held by them. So little else matters to me now. It's a phase, I know, because nothing lasts and I've been here before and I've ridden the wave back up again to a place where I felt somewhat motivated again, but motivated now is a completely different thing that it used to be.

In general, the graph looks like this:

It turns out I don't care about getting a job. I care about supporting myself, but I don't care about what it is I'm doing to support myself. I've lost my passion. Maybe that's not true. It's not lost, it's just changed form. My passion now isn't succeeding or making a good income. It's not teaching. It's transferred to a desire to be okay again. To feel at home again. To heal. To love.

Those four goals have become paramount and have proven to be so difficult now that they could easily become a full time occupation.

I didn't know how hard it would be to allow my heart to thaw out, even slightly. I didn't know how scary it would be to take a leap. I didn't realize how this new life would keep me up at night with anxiety, even after 2 years of it.

This is such a long haul. Making it back to where I used to be is impossible. I have to travel in a direction that leaves that life behind in some ways and that is hard to accept.

I find that I stare in wonder at people who have kids and a spouse and a job. It feels a little like being at the zoo, looking through the glass at a little world I can't get to, watching a species so different from my own. I examine them and wonder how they feel. I wonder if they feel lucky to have so much to live for. I wonder if they feel the sense of belonging I miss so much.

It's that sense of belonging I wish I had built into me, regardless of where I go or who I'm with.
I imagine it's in people who seem happy and relaxed and who have kids and a spouse to hug when they get home.

I know the picture I have is only in my mind and that other peoples' reality are very different than I imagine them to be.

I know everyone struggles and grieves and feels alone at times, I just sometimes wonder what it would feel like to be someone who hasn't felt so much loss.

But I'm not one of those people. I'm a part of a tribe of warriors who have battle scars and a weary heart. I'm brave and I'm strong. I've lived through some awful stuff.

I can survive. I can feel a sense of belonging. It won't be the same as before, but it will come. And with it, maybe the sense that there's something I want to do with my life.