Put Your Own Mask On First

Over the past few years, the entire focus of my life has been my children and my paid and volunteer work. For myself, I visit Sonic to get cherry cokes, read a few books a week, get my haircut twice a year, and take myself on a solo date to the movies every so often. I've had a two or three nights out with girlfriends in the past couple years and attended a few events with my kids. Well, and going back to school was something for me, but that's been on hiatus pending resolutions to life and health issues and likely won't resume for another year or two.

Apparently, that means I need to get a life. Or add something meaningful to my life that's "just for me." I've gotten that advice from therapists, women's groups I belong to, friends and my pastor.

And I know it's valid advice.

I just don't know how to enact it.

So for this post, I'm going to try to hearken back to my days as an airline employee, where the advice is given during every flight that you have to secure your own oxygen mask first before attempting to help anyone else. It just makes sense, right? How can you help anyone else if you are lying dead from lack of oxygen in your own lungs?

But good Lord! When you've spent your entire life as a people pleaser, never saying no, volunteering for every little thing that comes along or getting roped in anyways, always trying to fix problems for everyone else while your own problems fester and have basically ignored having a life of your own for well over a decade...how the heck do you get restarted?

I HAVE NO IDEA.

Seriously.

No idea.

I write thousands of words for others on a daily basis. Many of those words are words of advice, for blogs that source tons of other authoritative publications, or based on my own expert-level knowledge in the case of certain topics. I get paid pretty damn well for those words I write telling other people what to do in multitudinous situations.

But I have no idea how to get started getting my own "personal" life back to a place where I'm consistently doing some things for myself. Any things. Small things. Insignificant things. Maybe occasional big things. Who-knows-what things.

And so I guess it's time to begin a new journey...as if life hasn't offered me too many opportunities to do so that I did not want or ask for over the past couple years. But perhaps if this is a journey of my own choosing, for once, instead of reaction to the actions of others, I can jump in with more enthusiasm and experience higher success and satisfaction?

Who knows?

I sure don't.

Here's what I do know. I smile a lot. My kids make me laugh. I get to do meaningful things all the time in my community and church. Yes, there's an enormous lack of self-care going on currently in my life. But I'm functional. I'm not miserable. I love all the things I do, even when some of them sometimes drive me nutso cuckoo.

But at times, I can kind of catch a glimpse of how much more satisfied and even happier I could be if I refound more pieces of myself.

So it's time to try.

Again, I have no idea what I'm doing here, folks. NO IDEA at all what this supposed journey will look like.

But it's time to get started.

Wanna come along?