The wind blasts my hair into my face and I push it back with my hands “AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” I yell into the blazing summer sky.
It’s the first car I’ve ever really chosen, and I got so picky about it that the ony one available in the entire continental United States was in Cincinnati and had to be shipped here. A blinding yellow Jeep Renegade with vanity plates, a removable roof that converts into a sunroof, the complete winter package: heated seats and a heated steering wheel which is totally underrated because if you have one, you never need to wear gloves and I always forget them anyway, and a buncha other things I probably haven’t discovered yet. I immediately replace the seats with leather, too, no spilled coffee is going to ruin my life with threats of forever stains, never again. I am getting really good at answering an extremely important, life changing question.
What do you want?
Such a simple question.
So rarely answered.
Go ahead, call it selfish. It’s really not. It’s a boundary question, designed to pry you away from living a life of obligation to another person, place or idea. And the car is just a representation, a talisman parked in my driveway daily reminding me it’s perfectly okay to make my own decisions regarding my own life. This was a complete me decision, I didn’t consult anyone else at all before buying it except for my daughter, who got dragged along to the wonderful and enlightening world of the car salesroom. (Does anyone else suspect they starve you out in there? Naked and Afraid wouldn’t survive buying a car.). Poor thing, I owe her one, it’s CPS report worthy to put your offspring through this. But we make it through, and the big yellow Tonka looking thing is mine. Completely my own decision, uncolored by another’s opinion.
Go, Monica!
For the first time in my life, I am intentionally spending great swaths of time alone, purposefully and carefully rebuilding my own foundation.
Some of what I’m replacing isn’t very high quality material. I have told my story and it sounds like this is all circumstantial, something that happened to me, some sort of cosmic safe that fell on my head in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, leaving me a walking accordion. Victim of circumstance, that’s what it has seemed for 75 chapters now.
But that’s not quite correct.
I could have prevented most of these things from happening. Oh, yes, I most definitely had things “happen” to me, but one of the more valuable tidbits I pick up while voraciously studying how to grab the steering wheel of my own life is the necessity to take 100% responsibility for your role in everything, and I most definitely did play a role. Oh, yes, I did.
And as tempting as it may be to make it all sound like someone else’s fault, it isn’t. The concept of taking responsibility is popping up everywhere in my research, like aggressive dandelions in May, and after seeing its relentlessness, it starts to sink in.
You know those “lucky” people? The ones you see who happily bounce along in life with great relationships, nice things, the ability to add into others lives?
They earned that shit. And as tempting as it is to criticize, to say they’re selfish people who are just making a power grab, this hasn’t borne out in the lives of the truly successful people I’ve known.
But they do know who the hell they are, and they aren’t wasting their life’s energy sitting in a bar waiting for someone to complete them. They are already complete, and I am learning how to be complete, but there is a price involved here.
So, I swallow my pride, and figure out my role in all of it.
From the very beginning, I mentally revisit my childhood, in which I had previously viewed myself as victim, small and bullied. I think harder about this and how, just because I could use ten dollar words and understand science better than most, I was kind of an insufferable know-it-all. And no one likes an insufferable know-it-all. I would have beat myself up, too. And there really is something I could have done about this. Rather than view myself as “special”, as a brainiac who was on some better level than these lowly morons I had to deal with every day, I could have asked them, hey, how are things going in your life? How are you doing today? Been honestly concerned about others. And yes, I fully understand that I wasn’t likely to become best friends with the bratty cheerleading crowd, but this isn’t about them. I’m under the hood of my life, not theirs. I can’t fix anyone else, only me, and I’m tinkering away with my pneumatic wrench, replacing the things I should have dealt with long ago, a walking version of It’s Never Too Late To Change! up on cinder blocks getting the work done at last.
My husband? I could have broken it off, knowing it was never going to work, instead of stringing along a guy who could have been dating others who were far more appropriate.
I could have dug in my heels about college, sorry pal, I’m going and you can’t stop me. Did he lay in front of my car and prevent me from going? No, it was just too easy once he was getting his Master’s degree to say oh, I have to work so he can do this. But I could have said nope, I’m taking classes, too, whatareyagonnadoboutit?
In the church, I could have walked away when I knew my relationship still wasn’t working, I could have divorced far earlier and determined a different career.
And when I moved, I could have immediately gotten involved musically, instead of feeling sorry for myself and hoping some knight in shining armor would come fix my pathetic life and give me a reason to get up every day.
But another person can NEVER be your reason for getting up every day. Not if you really want to LIVE.
So, I’m on the mat today, and I’m beating it out of myself, and I vomit up the truth, that a hell of a lot of the more traumatic things in my life, a ton of the pain in these pages could have been prevented by me taking responsibility for my own life, and being adamant about what I wanted. And it’s going to be an unpopular opinion, but here it is.
It’s your own damn fault when you stay in a bad situation.
Are there consequences for getting out? Of course there are, but ultimately, isn’t it better for everyone if you’re being your true self?
And the great, and widely unsung benefit of taking 100% responsibility for any mess you created, is now you have taken back your life, now you own it, warts and all, and you full well damn realize that the biggest thing standing between you and what you want… is YOU. It places you in the driver’s seat, in control, holding the joystick, having the game controller, whatever euphemism you want to use, it really gives you the knowledge of something many never realize.
YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF YOUR OWN LIFE.
Staying in a bad situation is like lying under a fallen log as people walk by, observing, feeling sorry for you, jeez it sure looks miserable under that log. Day after day you lie there, unable to do anything but allowing your body to fall into disrepair, because at some point staying under the log became easier and more comfortable than the harder work of working up the strength to get out from under it, and tolerating bruised or broken bones as you continue your journey.
And life’s road is sadly littered with folks who refuse responsibility, alms-requesters at the roadside who tug at your heartstrings but also cause bystanders to wonder why doesn’t she just get out from under that log?
You may think you’re being noble just plodding through your shithole like a big martyr, instead of leaving it for what you know you really want, but you are not doing what you are made to do, you are not fulfilling your true calling. You may think you’re being noble, but you smell like shit and aren’t doing near the good in this world you could be doing if you actually were living in the world of What You Really Wanted.
So, what do you want?
It sounds selfish, but it’s not. It’s becoming exactly what you were designed to be. Only you know what drives you, what you started out loving to do when you were ten, what you could spend all your time doing versus what feels like nails on the proverbial chalkboard to suffer through.
Any person on this planet has had someone else have a different idea of how they should live their lives, often in an intention of helpfulness, yet just a distraction of what you really should be doing. Anyone who attempts anything will have those around them questioning all the way. Even Mother Teresa had those around her determining, gee, you really should stay at the convent instead of serving the extreme poor.
What do you want?
As my floor becomes littered with books and information designed to dig out who I am from this mess, I finally know some things about me.
I am music. It’s in my blood, will always be there. Constantly in my head and on my lips, this is my lifeblood. I need to sing, I need to write. I will never allow myself to not do this again.
I love public speaking, the excitement of contributing helpful information into other’s lives.
I love the outdoors and everything outside, open windows, lying in the grass looking at the sky, the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, the sand in my buttcheeks.
I adore adventure and want to seek out paths untaken and roads less traveled.
I live for contributing into other’s lives, making them feel amazing, helping them to see the brighter side of everything, telling them they matter, that they are essential to this big ball of dirt continuing to have meaning.
I’m in the driver’s seat now, and this is where I’m going. And, did you think I’m driving a car? I’m not. This is a rocket, pal. I am nearing fifty and don’t want to waste another minute.
I WANT to be a walking fucking ray of sunshine, brightening up every single person’s day I come into contact with.
I WANT to write, to craft a story in such a way that the reader is on the razor’s edge of their seat, voraciously devouring pages to see what happens…who shot J.R.?, desperately seeking the long awaited answer to the question I created.
I want to tell my story… THIS story that you have been following for over 75 chapters now.
I want camping gear.
I want a Sunshine Yellow Jeep with a removable roof.
And I’m going to get it. It’s all right outside that door, just waiting for me.
I pick up my phone and start booking trips, but of course nothing is ever this easy.
My new, fabulous Jeep is about to drive me straight back into something I never should have revisited, and I will be sorry.
Oh, I will be soooo sorry.
Worship Leader Gone Wild 