Who am I? Let's see......

As things began to get still and quiet in the house, I am left alone with myself.

My husband asks me a lot, "What do you want to do? What do you like? What makes you happy?"

I don't know. He gets very frustrated with my answer because he does everything with every fiber of his being. He loves me and the kids. He works hard to provide for and protect our family. He even plays hard. He only knows one way to do things and that is to the best of your ablility all the time. Do it right the first time so you can take pride in your accoumplishments. However, in his line of thinking there is no room for getting caught up in your own head. He is all about "get up and do something about it."

I listen to some other sources of inspration and found myself lost again. One school of thought is you control how you feel not the other way around. So if you are depressed then you just need to tell yourself that you are thankful for this day. That you will not be depressed today. The speaker I listen to is very firm in this area because she has lived through it. Her story is much like other sucess stories you may find in the world. Very bad things happened in her life, it took her a long time to unlearn many things and in the end she is better because the Lord helped her through.

I look at this sucess story and get more lost, how does that happen? If I do not know what makes me happy then how can the loved ones in my life make me happy?

Have you every recived flowers? I have. I remember feeling very special because it is not something that happens to me very often. My parents would get me other things because I can't smell and we did not have that kind of money laying around, I guess. So I would tell the people in my life that it was a waste of money and now I don't get flowers. Just one example of how I hurt my self.

I got it! When I was young, 4th or 5th grade, I wrote a paper about what I thought my life would be like when I was "old" around 30. I can tell you now exactly what that looked like in my head because it was so profound to me. I would be a Vet. and when I was not taking care of others animals I would be on my ranch in the mountians. I would have barns with concrete floors, sand and shaving stalls. State of the art water to the stalls and wash rack. I would have all the tack and feed and meds to take care of the the horses. I would train and board for others. I would proudly watch my 3 children (2 boys and a girl)  in the show ring and rodeo arena. In the evenings I would sit on the couch by the fire reading while my husband clicked throught TV channels looking for the football game.

When I hit the bar scene I told interested men all I wanted was to take care of my husband, my kids, and my home. I would brag about being able to bait my own fishing hook, and other things that would get me the attention I wanted. I still can bait my own hook I just don't like the heat of summer in Oklahoma or the skeeters.

The funny thing is I can recall these things and remember the feeling, the hope, and overwhelming desire. But should you ask me right now, I can not tell you anything with passion. I believe that I trained myself to put kids, husband, and home first so I struggle with knowing what I want. It even gets so bad that when my back is out or I am struggling with my house looking like a war zone, I get so numb I don't feel anything.

I guess this question is a lot harder to answer, than it first appeared. Maybe I will figure out the things that make me happy and my struggles will become smaller. Here's to hoping. I want to Live My Life not just be in it.