Finding what's important

What’s Important?  This is my question I have been asking myself for a long time and I am still struggling to figure out the answer.  A part of me constantly struggles with the need to KNOW what I need to do verses just doing what I think I need to do which prevents me from doing anything.  I’m a procrastinator – if I do not have validation in my thoughts or actions I tend not to act.  This goes for work, home, relationships, personal health – basically everything.  This year is going to be a huge transition year for me and I am already struggling to find the balance.  Here I am, 29 years old, the last year of being in my 20’s and I have no real idea of how to prioritize and I still give up before I start.  I am determined to change this year (typical answer to my problems – determination – yet no action); well I fully intend on action this time so I need to find some way to keep the fire lit under my behind.

How are things changing – well, the last eight years of my life have been focused on work, school, weddings and divorces, kids and more school.  Now I’m done having weddings, done having kids and done with school.  I am now “settled” but I’m not…

I currently don’t know where my place is in life; what is my purpose?  Am I suppose to be living day to day or am I suppose to let life lead me to where I am suppose to be?  How much planning am I really suppose to be doing?  If I’m done having kids then I don’t have to plan on more; I’m not going to get married again since my marriage is far from falling apart and my husband is not allowed to die (he’s got to put use to all that training he does to keep himself coming home each night) so what is left to plan?  I understand the need of financial planning and I am doing that so does that mean I am left to do nothing?  I am a planner and when I have nothing to plan I tend to get unsettled, hence the unsettledness I am feeling now.  So if I can’t plan then I need to figure out what is important in life.

A few weekends ago I went up to Atlanta to visit my BFF and one night we stayed up WAY too late discussing what was important in regards to my marriage.  My husband and I tend to bump heads on what is important in our relationship; I tend to think we should improve on some aspects where he seems to never think anything is wrong therefore nothing needs fixing.  Yes, I understand the difference in guys heads verses a woman’s but it is even more complicated than that.  When I put myself in my husband’s shoes I realize how he seems to think the quirks in our marriage are not important to get upset about because he deals with REAL problems every day at work – dealing with the lost, violent, sick, injured people in our society – it’s no wonder he thinks we never have problems because when you compare the two worlds we are perfect.  I don’t have to arrest people, nor do I have to help get people out of the sunroof of a car because that is the only way out; no, I get to

sit in an air conditioned office and categorize expenses – the worst thing I have to do is tell people they owe money to a government agency.  So how do I determine importance?  How do I, like my father says, pick the hill to die on?  I think this is one of the more important things for me to figure out - without a strong marriage everything else around me could easily fall apart.

Fun, yep – that’s another word not used often in my vocabulary.  I want FUN to be a large part of my kids lives, I do know this is important, but in order to do this I must also allow myself to have fun as well.  This past weekend we went to Summer Waves Water Park and it was…Fun.  I dreaded going because I just KNEW taking Colleen would be more work than it was worth.  The day started off with an extremely excited little girl running into our room at O’dark thirty telling us to “GET UP” because we were going to the water park.  Once we got to the park we all rode one slide that allowed children her size to go down and she had FUN – yelling on the way down “THIS IS AWESOME!”  Seeing her have fun allowed me to have fun.  Surprisingly the whole day went really well and the only frustrating time occurred closer to the end of the day when Colleen began to not follow instructions because she was tired and frankly I was tired too so I’m sure I was getting testy too.  Having fun gave me hope that I could continue to do things with her to bring us both enjoyment.  I still don’t want to bring her to the grocery store but I don’t want to take my husband either so maybe that has nothing to do with her age.  Raising non-bratty kids is important to me - the problem here is figuring out where the line is between fun and spoiled...

As I sit here I am struggling with my need to make lots of lists - maybe lists are something i still need to function but I think I need to make daily lists rather than an impossible to achieve list.  So far I know that my marriage and my kids are important and right now I think if I can focus on those two things I will do just fine...