Paralysis

I have experienced a kind of work paralysis my entire adult life. I think it started when I accepted my husband’s proposal of marriage. It was a wrenching decision, the one to marry him. I absolutely have no regrets, there was no way I could let him go on life’s adventure without me. He was the person who understood me the best, and being with him felt like home, and it has been. But I also I felt strongly, as much as I denied it, that I was setting aside something of myself--my personal dreams and goals. And I believed somewhere within me that it had to be done for us to be together.

It is what I saw modeled in my own home. My mother lived only for her husband and family, and being together, the family doing things together, came above all else. It was all she ever wanted, and she was fulfilled in that. So even though I said I would still work toward fulfilling my personal dreams and goals--I should have been able to, now with the encouragement of a supportive husband--I didn’t really believe it. I saw no way ahead of me for that to be so, I simply couldn't picture it, had never seen it. So my dreams, ambitions and inspiration for work atrophied, and I was somehow crippled.

So I struggled, oh how I struggled with my self-esteem in those early years of marriage. Not having anything to identify with professionally, I lost my formerly ever-present confidence and questioned myself relentlessly. I found I had an incredible lack of inspiration, motivation and direction to do anything professionally, in spite having spent my youth building those things. Nothing felt right, and I needed, insisted, that something feel right before I committed to it. I tried a full-time job, but it crowded me and my priorities for almost no payoff, and I was unhappy. I was not able to make it fit with my view of closeness in marriage. My husband and I were fully committed to his working long hours to reach his goals, and he was on-board with whatever I wanted to do. But I couldn’t muster. I also think I was so thrown by marriage and moving across the country that I never got my bearings.

Instead I focused on being a good wife and a better Christian. I really thought I was building the best life possible, which started with my spiritual priorities being in place, and continued with committing to doing whatever it took to have the closest marriage ever. If I did those things well, the lesser priority of professional success would naturally come to me. Isn't that what Christianity had raised me to believe? Put your SELF aside, the Bible says, and you will be blessed. That was easy enough because my SELF had no direction on how to proceed outside of Christianity and marriage. All my old dreams, desires and ambitions were not there for me, I could not call upon them. It was okay, I told myself, because I was working on more important things. Now I see that was a crutch to hold up my paralyzed self, and not the whole truth. So I worked part-time at jobs that provided flexible hours enabling me to work around my husband’s difficult schedule, and I did build a good life and a good marriage. I put even more time and effort into my spiritual life, believing it would pay off in all ways, and eventually show me, since I was “waiting” on God and not going my own way, how to be fulfilled in my work life.

Well that never happened. And twenty years later, I’m still trying to get those crippled, withered, twisted muscles of inspiration, dreams, desire, and ambition to move again. I so want to fly with them someday.