I never thought this would be me at 34.  I always thought I would turn out like the people I surrounded myself with...being a change-maker, professionally and financially successful.  I always thought I was one of the smart ones.  Sure I wasn't like some of my friends who are brilliant and on the cutting-edge in their respective fields.  But I still felt I was smart nonetheless even if I couldn't compete with them.  And I always thought I would make it, that I would have no problems in this regard.  I never thought this would be me.  I never thought at 34 I would be reading about people I used to know making partner at their law firms years ago, working at The White House, etc.  I didn't think I would be enrolled in a coaching program which itself doesn't exhibit excellence and I never thought I would be in this type of hoo-hah field learning from hoo-hah people who turn their noses away from academics and research.

Somewhere I lost my way.  And the truth is I don't know how to find my way back to something that makes any sense.

Now I spend my time with people who lack any significant confidence and turn to me hoping I can fill it for them.  Except all that makes me want to do is run the other way.  I know what it is like to be them...what it feels like...the emptiness...and even though this post is a downer...I have to say I don't feel that deep-seated insecurity in the way I used to for years.  I don't feel that self-consciousness as debilitatingly as I once used to.

I don't know if I took myself out of running at some point.  I always feel like taking the entry level corporate job that moved me to NYC in the first place was maybe a mistake cause it didn't challenge me intellectually.  But I stopped leading with pragmatism and led with my emotions and ran when the escape from pressures back home felt like they were closing in on me.  NYC was my dream, one I created for myself and so it was to be.  NYC was to be my world, my place to create what I wanted.  Only other than living in NYC I don't know that I really created much else of what I wanted here.  I was never in love with my job.  Even when I liked it I knew I never loved it and also knew I was not doing the type of work that I should be doing or the type of work that challenged me.  If I had any real interest in making it a career I would have pushed myself much faster to advance up the corporate ladder, but instead I was complacent.

The truth is now I don't know what to do anymore.  I don't know which way to go.  I'm tired of trying to tell myself even if I'm not successful professionally or financially I might be successful in other ways.  This is not my world...not the one I come from...and I would like to go back to that world just a little bit...to imbue within me some of those values that I seem to have lost somewhere.

I'm tired of myself, my drama, my rumination, my belaboring things.  Who would I be without those things Byron Katie asks in her work...the truth is I don't know who I would be.  I can't imagine.  Just writing that makes my eyes fills with tears.  What more could my life have been without those things?

I found it very hard to be the daughter of my two parents.  And I've spent my life stuck in this feeling.  I think that fear that I had that I was a combination of the bad qualities of each of my parents is true, rather than a combination of their wonderful qualities.  Probably the strongest feeling I've had consistently in my life was feeling alone, unheard and unknown and so there has always been a sense of desperation to not feel that way.  The problem is that when you feel a sense of desperation it gets in the way of concentrating on other things.  That desperation is probably still there, but even I can tell that it has quieted a little.  I can sit better with my anxiety instead of being impulsive as I once used to be.

I don't think I want my life anymore.  My big fear was that I've wasted it, that I haven't lived up to my potential like my father.  That I would have his anger and lack of emotional intelligence.  What a thing to carry from childhood on.  Now I see how I carry now with me my mom's misery...the what's the point attitude I referenced here last week.  She didn't used to be this way, but now she is a little bit...or a lot.  My father gave up on his life in some ways a long time ago out of fear I think...although he would never say that...he will tell you a story...his story for why his life turned out the way it has...it will involve him looking like a martyr for my mother...he has one life...and this is what he decided to do in it...to live small and in fear for the last 30 years.  I don't know how to live in a way where I'm not defined by them.

I realized this weekend I've been spending so much time in the last year on relationships with people that were truly never going to grow into being those kinds of first string lasting friendships over years.  In basketball does a coach spend more time on his first or second string teams?  I suspect not the latter.  And I realize yet again that I have a very sharp, smart, awesome set of close friendships that have been built over many years.  They are long and have history and these people are solid so why am I wasting my time and energy getting caught up in frustration and drama over relationships that aren't worth it.  I do myself and the other person a disservice.  And I have to say since I've dramatically changed my behavior in those situations I haven't missed them particularly.  My coach was right.  People who are just looking to blather on and on will go find someone else to talk to if you walk away from them.

But the truth is I don't know how to get back to my life that made some sense in a way it doesn't anymore.  I don't know how to sit quietly in a class and not speak up to improve it.

What am I missing that people around me have that helps them be successful at life?

When I was a sales rep I had a professor we were trying to sign to write a book for us.  He taught a course about death and dying and one of the exercises he asked his students to do was write their own obituaries. I've never done this, but I do think about it from time to time...I think I wonder what my friends and family would say if I passed away.  (I'm not suicidal or anything like that so don't worry.)  I don't know what they would say.

i think i would just say anu was lost, always searching for something.  She had a restlessness about her.  It always seemed like she never found her place.  i think she was always searching for some type of family of her own creation to replace the one she came from wanting to distance herself from dysfunction.  i'm glad that she got to experience love once in her life from a man that was respectful and caring towards her.  and i'm glad she had some really great friends.