There can be too many paths and not enough all at once. How do small decisions create such a need to overthink? Avoid. Regret, preemptively.
When it comes to decisions for other people, these seem easy. Everything for everyone else is sorted into categories that have solutions, resolutions, needs, fixes even. Though for me, going on a trip, choosing something that is just for me, that is fun, is an infinite struggle. This is likely a vast overstatement but there is a vein of truth.
Even as I sit today by myself on a well-deserved, much-needed time away from home for me, I waffle on what to do. I have thoughts and I have a rough idea about what I want to fill my day with, but will I follow through? Will the day be stifled with “well, I coulds” until the day has faded away and it is time to go home? I will strive for that not to happen, and it feels doable, here in this space.
Flash back to home and “real life”. It is more of a struggle. There are so many competing interests that all feel so time-limited. The kids are getting older and independent which makes home demands so very different but still ever present.
This shift in home dynamics may be the catalyst for this sense that I need to reevaluate things that bog my mind so that I can clear the path for a much more meaningful or rich independent lifestyle that is looming. This includes rekindling once enjoyed activities as a partner, as a friend, and as a person.
I find a depth of passion being a mother though like many others, it consumes the parts of self that were already dampened before motherhood. Becoming a mother was such an important part of creating a family that fit, that I longed to be a part, the default has become “I might be able to do that, let me check”. I do not mind this, in fact I relish it in many ways. I just know it will be difficult for my brain to learn to not do this as the dynamics of what it means to be a mom change in the very quickly fleeting years to come.
I am here, in Bellevue, reclaiming the decision making part of my brain that allows me to quickly and easily choose what is fun, where should I go, and how do I get there. Without doubt, without a second glance, with just a resolve to do something just for me.
