Tuesday, August 17, 2010

life: Aren't I supposed to be.....

I always thought that once I was pregnant that somehow my life would drastically change. That I would have some kind of identity crisis or need to reevaluate who i am as a person or something. So far, none of that has happened to me yet and it makes me wonder, am i doing this right?

I'm sure that the answer to that, like all things, is that there is no "right" or "wrong" with any of these life moments or experiences. I know that that's the truth but whenever i hear that i feel so unfulfilled by it. It's like when I was little and I would ask my mother, "who do i look like the most in our family?" and she would respond with, "you look like yourself and that's perfect." I would always roll my eyes at that, i wanted to know who i resembled and being just myself was never enough, it scared me in fact. I wanted to belong.

I guess it's the same feeling that drives my "am i doing this right?" obsession in my life. I want to have the right check marks at the right places so my list can be diverse and i can cover all the bases.

Whenever I play one of those videogames where you get to roam around a world and do quests on your own time and in your own way this trait of mine shows up almost twice as strong. I'm a compulsive explorer. i talk to EVERYONE, i search for everything, i cover every piece of ground i can. I spend huge quantities of time searching regions for secrets, i perfect my skills in every way possible. I love that there are quests that open up and I can watch one by one as they get checked off and I know that I am definitively making progress. It's somehow so fulfilling to me to see that - to see things get crossed off of the list and to know that at the end i will not only win but I will also know all of the secrets.

I would love so much to have a guide like that to life. I know I approach life in the same way: exploring every part of it i can, getting certified in every imaginable endeavor possible so i know everything there is to know about everything (areas in which i'm certified: interior decorating, wedding planning, personal training, lifeguarding, obviously life coaching but that was a legitimate one, there are more but i'm forgetting them now...). I just want to amass as much information about the things that I think are important as possible. i guess i'm hoping that somewhere there is someone keeping track of all of this stuff and that I am making some kind of progress here, that all of these thoughts and activities and weird jobs and endeavors haven't been for naught (i like getting to use that word) and that it will ultimately just MEAN something. Wouldn't that be great?

So when I reach a Major Life Point like being pregnant/preparing for a family and I'm somehow not having the overhaul experience that I thought i was supposed to have, a distant part of me worries a little bit. "Aren't I supposed to be wondering what it means to be a Mom?", "Aren't I supposed to be obsessing about how this is going to impact my life?", "Aren't I supposed to be frantically trying to join mommy groups or set up activities that help indoctrinate me into parenthood?" and so on and so forth.

The answer is that I don't know if that's what I'm supposed to be doing or not. I'm not doing those things and I don't know if I will be at some point but for now, i'm just kind of going with the flow and waiting with excitement and anticipation for my baby to get here and for our lives to continue forward. I don't know what any of it means but for once, I'm really not trying to figure it all out.

and i think that's a good thing? at least, i hope so...