I have been struggling with misalignment lately.
I've been preoccupied with the full-ness of life– all the roles to be filled and things to be done. There are so many things. We've all got 'em, and there's just no escaping the stuff that lives in the category entitled Things I Need To Do Because They Need To Be Done.
For me it looks like this:
I have to parent.
I have to feed people.
I have to keep the house and the schedule tidy.
In my home and outside of it, too, I have to mediate and administrate and facilitate and investigate and accommodate and reiterate, Reiterate, REITERATE until I want to absquatulate.
These Things I Need To Do are fine, and sure they're important, and I do them more well or less well... but most of them are draining, and I would go so far as to say none of them are my "why".
My why is found in a different category: Things I Need To Do Because They Give Me Life.
These two categories look pretty similar at first glance, but the way they each function is completely different. When I shorten them this difference becomes clear: I give you "Things I Need To Do," and "Things I Need."
And now comes the uncomfortable part.
I have fallen down on the acknowledging and meeting of my actual Needs, and allowing the Things I Need To Do to take over. Absolute freaking tyrants. And what I've discovered is without the Things I Need anchoring me in my life I'm just drifting aimlessly, listlessly. The Things I Need To Do sap all my energy and just can't bring satisfaction if they fall outside the orbit of the Things I Need, no matter how well I seem to have a handle on them.
But whose fault is this, really? Oh shoot, that's right. It's mine. I'm the boss of both categories– it's my job to give them each their appropriate value and keep them in their own places. It's my job to set and hold these boundaries with my own self. Fack. So when I'm feeling drained, resentful, super cranky (apologies to my family), depressed, and lost in my own life, it's a big, bright, red flag that my boundaries are breaking down and all the parts of my life are oozing into one another– diffuse, without distinction. Another warning sign is when the endearingly pointed words "I don't know how to use my life" start dropping out of my mouth with alarming frequency.*
a being from Strange Planet, by Nathan Pyle
Oops. Time to adjust.
A couple weeks ago when I was struggling to put words to what I was experiencing, an image finally came to me: without the Thing I Need occupying its proper place, all the Things I Need To Do are like so many planets just flinging themselves erratically around my universe, and I'm being dragged along behind each of them. But one of the big problems I have is being able to recognize the Things I Need for what they are– acknowledging their gravity, if you will. I've been treating the Things I Need as if they're just cute little hobbies or quirks or things I like that aren't of any real consequence... but my perception has changed. The Things I Need are not inconsequential, they are vital. They're the Things I Need To Do Because I Can't Not Do Them. They are the sun in my universe, and they bring their vitality to everything else I do.
All this to say, I am recalibrating. I'm practicing boundaries with myself. I'm no longer demeaning the Things I Need and treating them like they don't matter. I'm giving my sun its rightful place, and allowing all my little planets to fall happily back into their orbits.
Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these?
He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name:
by the greatness of his might
and because He is strong in power,
not one is missing.
Isaiah 40:26