Learning to just live, live for fun, live for purpose, live for me

I cannot clearly put my finger on the last time in my life when I was truly happy. High school? Maybe. College? Perhaps. Life was easier then, that is for sure. But happy, just because I was enjoying my life? I do not know. It has been long enough that as I am rediscovering this feeling I have sought after for so long, it is like an old friend creeping back into my life.

In just the last couple months it seems that everything is finally aligning and I am really living my life, and just for me. Have I been living my life for the last seven years? Of course, but somewhere in there I lost myself, my purpose, my heart, my passion, me. Instead of really living I was just going through the motions; going to school, working, making good grades, student teaching, meeting family obligations, graduating, getting my first teaching job. No real emotion or connection to any of it.

Without diving deeply into what was the last seven or so years of my life, it's summed up like this. I came home from ASU to help take care of my father, his health was up and down for the first four years of that time, that wore on my family and on me as a person. I also got to truly know my father during this time. I worked full time and went to school at night during this time. I experienced other ups and downs of life all the while too. In 2007 his health got really bad, that year was very tough on my family and on me. I was finishing up college, helping with his ailing health and working. Then I quit work to student teach. October 7, 2007, smack in the middle of my full time student teaching my dad passed away.

From that point forward it has been 100% going through all of the emotions that losing a parent evokes. My purpose for living at home was gone, I moved out. Mom started seeing Geo eventually. My purpose as her go-to person was gone. I had lost my father, I had lost my purpose for life on a personal level. All I had was my job. I POURED myself into it. I had no life. Sometime between last January and now I decided to start living my life.

It only took all of 2009 to get there. I went through all sorts of randomness in 2009, really thought things through, worked on myself, set goals for myself. July 2009 on set the forward movement in my life. I solved my big issues, I freed myself of some things that were bringing me down. Just in the last 30 days that amazing, wonderful, freeing feeling of happiness has crept back in... and... it... feels... sooooooo... WONDERFUL! I think what feels best about it is I got here on my own, it took no one else in my life to make me feel this way. Did I have help through the influence of those around me, of course. But my happiness is connected in no way, shape or form to anyone other than myself.

The best days of my life in the last seven years have been everything Christmas and New Year's surrounded by family and friends.

Today I left work before 4 pm. Came home and relaxed a bit. Then I went and spent the most decadent 2 hours ever at Barnes and Nobel pouring through the shelves of books. Sipping on Starbucks. I got a fun and lighthearted novel, a deep and educational biography and a book about making lists for life goals (perfect for the year to come!). This is truly living.

Tomorrow? My 10 goals for 2010!