What Do You Want? (Part 2)

Eight years ago I wrote a post entitled: What Do You Want?   Shortly after writing that first post, however, I had another baby and was thrown into a very busy life.  Teenagers, a newborn, a husband’s demanding job, my own time-intensive calling in church, the death of my father, and the beginning of young adult parenting all seemed to take me away from really answering this question.  Of course, I didn’t put all my personal pursuits on hold.  In the last few years I completed my yoga teacher certification and opened up my very own studio!  “Life [has been full] of marble and mud,” to say the least!  

And yet, here I am, on a lovely solo retreat asking myself this same age-old question: What do I want? The first time I asked that question I was still in the throws of motherhood and exploring having another baby or moving forward without.  This time, I am asking the question knowing that phase of my life is over (much to Donovan’s disappointment because he doesn’t want to be the youngest!). My home is more empty than not these days.  My children are forging off into their own new beginnings.  Though the same words, it’s a very different question this time: 

What do I want the next ten to twenty years to be?  

When starting out newly married the horizon was hopeful and endless!  Dreams of children and motherhood filled my mind endlessly.  Goals and visions for what our future family culture would be like, I was eager to create the home I’d always imagined.  Of course, life and reality quickly come into focus, but the vision was real and tangible. All things were possible. 

After a lifetime of joys and struggles, ups and downs, hard knocks and unimaginable blessings somewhere the imaging stops.  Or, it doesn’t stop so much as it changes. Suddenly, maybe living in the moment is more important than what lies on the horizon.  This is true. But, as a friend recently reminded me, “You have so much life to live!” 

“A desire is a want.  Learn to want or you’ll end up with a life you don’t want.”  

                                                    Pavel Somov, Present Perfect, p. 97

I’m torn. I’m torn between wanting more and being content with where I am.  That is the truth. I’m torn between holding to the images I had of this phase and the reality of what is before me.  Do I still carry those same dreams?  Or do I take the thing in front of me?  Do I enjoy where I am? Or do I work towards something different?  In short, what do I want!? It’s the hardest question to answer when thinking too far into the future.  It’s the perfect question for living in the now. 

Elder Lynn G. Robbin’s has stated, “Any why can help us with our how.”  

Why do I want what I want? 

I want to _______________ because _____________. 

This actually makes the question much simpler. 

I want to write because I have a message to share I believe will help people find their own answers to this question. I want to write because I have found so much strength in reading the words of others as well. 

I want to speak and teach because I love connecting with others through discussion and looking at principles in a different light. I want to learn from others even as I share with them. 

I want to be a grandmother because I can’t wait to watch my children experience the joys of parenthood (though I really have no control over this decision, I can still want my family to progress). 

I want to coach and continue teaching yoga because I know the healing I have received from doing these things. 

I also want to be free to attend my children’s big events in life, to drop anything to be there when they struggle, and to not have so much on my plate that I can’t say yes when they need me. 

I want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ because He is truly what brings me joy and I want to share Him with others. 

It’s interesting to me that in my twenty’s I was filled with “a perfect brightness of hope” when all things were so uncertain.  I’m startled by the anxiety that age has introduced (menopause?). I’m fascinated with the growth that is still bound to come, at a time when I thought maybe I would “have it all figured out.” I’m amazed at the goodness of God who still carries me even as I explore the precarious, unsettling and uncharted course ahead of me. 

What a journey!  And I feel like I’m just at the beginning. 

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“Pray for assurance at the end of the day and it will come.”

                           Sister Reyna I. Abuerto