I need to get a life.

I am the proud new owner, for the second time in my life, of the phrase "my therapist told me...." Actually, it's kind of the reverse; I sit in the chair and tell her everything for an hour every week. On the mornings of "therapy day," I wake up with a giant knot in the center of my stomach and an overwhelming urge to have a panic attack - the symptoms of a hardcore, long-term "do-it-yourselfer" that is coming to grips with the fact that I can no longer do-it-myself at this time. Someone who has awoken in the cold sweat nightmare of discovering that, despite my insightful and honest approach, I have become a victim of aimless existence rather than kicking ass and taking names. I have become accustomed to allowing things to happen instead of making them happen.

How did that happen?

I realized that I have no goals in life that are tangible; nothing to work toward and draw strength from; nothing to put x's on the calender to count down to. I fill my time with abstract concepts instead of concrete joys, as if my time were short enough that I can only dream instead of do, and have finally discovered what a giant mess I have made of my life by doing nothing. So I have a therapist and I tell her about me and she gets me to listen to myself; points out the answers that I already knew but couldn't face on my own.

I need to get a life. I need to figure out what I want that life to look like, and then I need to live it. I feel like a child, trying to decide what they'll be when they grow up; full of possibilities, but also a little overwhelmed by those same possibilities. It's no easy task to invent yourself when you're already a 30something with a husband and 3 kids. Just the thought of the situation is depressing, shocking, sickening - how could I have allowed this to happen when I work so hard to ensure that my own children have a good life? The short answer is that no one has ever done that for me and I suppose I didn't know how to do it for myself, or that I even could. I remember a great deal of "no you can't do that," but seldom was there support for my dreams. In fact, I'm still told by my mother to "go out and get a real job," when I talk about writing or photography, which are both true passions of mine. My husband has been the only source of support, which I am grateful to have, and to which I should have been listening to much more than I have been.

So this is it, as cliched as the phrase is; the first day of the rest of my life. It's a work in progress, which is still better than an exercise in futility - doing nothing and going nowhere. I am looking forward to being among the living, though!