Purpose Confusion

Like many others, I am searching for my purpose in life. That seems to mean (in my narrow-minded world) that I only have one purpose, and I'm trying to figure out what it is. Why waste time doing something that is not my one purpose? As a result, I seem to have been scared into a corner, unwilling to move in any purposeful direction.

So when I had one of "those" dreams last night, I thought I had it all figured out. My general purpose, I think, is to help people (isn't that everyone's?). I've been trying to narrow it down to a specific group: Seniors? Homeless? Financially challenged? I thought that my heart would guide me to the correct group. My dream had me at the Mustard Seed Church, although it was a big 6+ story building (I only say 6+ because I went to the sixth floor). I parked my little car in a 30 minute parking zone but stayed too long, resulting in $600 worth of parking tickets (there's that six again). I returned another day with some blankets for the room I had visited, and was trying to fold them in a common area but was having trouble folding them (you know how dreams are), and I kept thinking, "I'm taking too much time, and Scott and the kids are waiting for me." I woke up as I was riding the elevator up to the sixth floor with my blankets.

I was sure this all meant I was supposed to go back to the homeless people. Then I received an e-mail from someone who is in dire financial straights and needs help. Now I'm not sure where the seniors fit in. Maybe in all this I have to be patient and not narrow my focus to one particular group. After all, everyone needs help in some capacity, right?

And so for today I will help the financial challenged, and Friday I'll help the seniors, and one of these days I'll make it back to the inner city, because it's calling me loud and clear.

A True Purpose

I'm doing volunteer tax returns for our town office, and Wednesday I'll be going to visit two seniors at their lodge. The thought of going there to help them (one uses a walker and is not very mobile), makes me feel content, exhilarated, and useful. The appreciation in their voices is worth more than anything I could ever be paid. Interestingly, a part time opportunity has come up in which I would work solely with seniors. I wonder, however, if I would come to resent the work that could eat up precious time. I would never want to think a negative thought about a 90 year old who is waiting for me to help them with their life. Maybe I should just keep volunteering, because the time is my own and I'm giving it - I'm not obligated. That makes a big difference.

Am I just taking the easy way out?

Friends

I've never been a person who has had a lot of friends, primarily by my own choice since I'm so antisocial. I had a great friend as a kid, until we went to different highschools and then lost touch...even though she still lived down the street. In high school I had one good friend and lots of casual friends, but then we went to University and all lost touch, even though we were in the same University. In University I had a great group of friends - graduate students who were all older than I was and took care of me like a little sister. Then they all finished their theses, moved away, and started their lives.

I have had many casual friends since then, lots of bar friends (they're easy to find!), and when we moved to Devon, lots of neighbourhood and "small town" friends. Everyone is friendly in a small town! I do, however, have one friend who was special - she is outgoing, extroverted, gregarious, quite unlike me, but like me in that she is smart and Type-A and is a thinker. She definitely has no need for extra friends, but I always felt like she truly cared about me, and I thought about the future days when we would grow older, and watch our kids grow, and maybe my kids would marry her kids, and I took for granted that she would never leave.

But, I found out today that her family is likely moving, and for an excellent reason, but it didn't keep me from mourning the loss of my buddy and crying silently to myself. I'm probably crying more for the fact that she gave me a way out of my anti-social behaviour - she was outgoing enough for both of us, and our kids liked to play together, and now I'm going to have to start all over again. Selfish, yes.

So, I guess I have to work at letting more of my casual friends into my life, opening my anti-social door, and find someone else to lean on. I wonder if, over in my parallel universe, the alternate Jo is outgoing and full of life. This Jo is just going to have to work at it.

Spiritual gift...or spiritual curse?

I'm struggling right now with my business - it's just tax preparation, so how much emotion could be involved in that? Lots, I am finding out. From the 52 year old divorced trucker to the lady who has just started a framing business, I find myself thinking about them far too often. I want them to think highly of me, so I put in so much extra effort to give them great service. But at what cost? I can't sleep, I'm always trying to think of ways to help them, and I feel guilty handing them a bill. Sometimes I feel like I should be doing a lot of this out of the goodness of my heart, but then I have to remind myself that I need to pay my mortgage and keep food on the table. Then I think that if they just would have called someone else, they probably would have received the same product (although not necessarily the same great service!) for a far lesser price. How crazy is that?

In a way I envy my former co-workers who could rattle through tax returns and couldn't care less about their clients (and often had never even met them!). But, I guess that's not me - I'm just going to have to deal with the fact that I care about everyone who crosses my path.

This is going to be a long two months!

Ego

Sometimes I wonder why our Creator made us to be self-centred and egotistic. It is so frustrating sometimes!! In a way, it makes us strive for the top and try to be the best we can, but on the way to the top it's so easy to forget the important things. I'm sure my 80 year old self would travel back and time and say things like, "Jo, it didn't matter at all whether you were the best at this or had the most of that, but what did matter is that the kids turned out okay and you fulfilled your given purpose, and the legacy will live on forever."

But still, I get a little twinge of jealousy when I hear about the other accountants in town getting clients, thinking, "Those should be my clients, I'm a CA after all, blah blah blah." Why can't I silence that little voice in my head? Maybe 15 years of hanging around with power hungry, bottom line oriented people has helped that little voice along, but it's still my responsibility to silence it.

And so my fervent prayer today is to get rid of that little voice and concentrate on my Purpose (which I'm still not sure what it is!). I have prayed for some revelation these past few nights, but instead had dreams about vampires and heavy metal bands....not too much revelation there! I've been enjoying the blue sky a little more, however, knowing that one day from that sky will come the answer.....one day.......

They're Okay

I had a friend in junior high named Jeanette - we also played soccer together in elementary school. Sadly, Jeanette was one of those kids who would get very angry if you pushed the wrong buttons, and we were mean to her in grade 4 - so mean that I still feel guilty about it today. But, in junior high we were friends, even though she wasn't one of the "cool kids" (but hey, neither was I!), and then she went off to a different high school. She had a very rough childhood, losing her mom in a car accident, her dad to a heart attack, and then finally, her brother. I could hardly believe it when, in the summer of 2006, I picked up the local newspaper and found that my old friend had died in a car accident on one of the highways around Devon. I went to her funeral out of a sense of obligation, even though I hadn't seen her in 20 years, but I wanted to give my respects to her, and through her funeral saw that she had lived a happy life, had three kids, and had been living only minutes away from me and I never knew.

Elizabeth was invited to a birthday party by a new kid in her class - his name is Talon and he's a funny little kid. Parents were invited to the party as well, and I thought it would be nice to meet Talon's parents - it seems that the more people you know in a small town, the better.

So I took Elizabeth over and was invited in warmly by Robert, and when I met him I had a flash of familiarity, but not unlike when I see a lot of people around town. After all, it's a small town. A young girl was bringing out a pinata for the kids to play with, very pretty, around 14 years old, and as I watched them, I had a sudden realization: I was watching Jeannette's daughter holding the pinata and Robert was Jeanette's widowed husband. The realization was so overwhelming for a moment that I could hardly contain my emotions. I had thought about Jeanette's family for three years and wondered how they were, and now I could see - they were doing very well.

Robert appeared happy, hosting this party for his girlfriend's son, and Shelby was a beautiful young lady - spitting image of her mom, but so different in personality. She was outgoing and chatty, and so good with all the little kids running around.

In an episode of Star Trek, Mr. Spock comments on how time is like water, with ebbs and flows and waves, and that the currents of time eventually take us all to where we are supposed to be. I suppose it was only a matter of time before I crossed paths with this family, but I had never thought it would be in such an unexpected way. I stayed just long enough to see Jeannette's two sons drive up in a beat up red van, but they looked good as well - young teenagers, laughing at the little kids.

I don't know why everything happened as it did today, but lately a lot have things have been happening that make me question His Devine Intervention. We need to realize more how God is in control of the ebbs and flows of time, and all things come around to serve His purposes.

If we can just stop long enough to listen, all things can be revealed, but we have to stop, and that is the challenge.

Missing

Back in the late 80s and early 90s there was an ice dancing team from Canada who skated for France. They were a brother and sister team known as the Dushesnays. I remember seeing them for the first time and felt a sense of magic in their skating, and when they skating their program in the 1990 world championships, I cried. It was called "Missing" and it was about oppression and crimes against humanity, at a time when human beings were going missing and never heard from again.

I pulled it up on Youtube today and watched it, evoking memories from 20 years ago, and again I cried. But this time it wasn't so much for the routine, which was still breathtakingly spectacular. I cried again for the memories I have from that time, since I taped the program at my grandparents' house (on VHS!) and watched it over and over. After watching that performance, my teenaged self chatted with my grandma, played a bit of crib with grandpa, with the world ahead of me, on the cusp of graduation and University looming in the fall.

Fast forward 20 years and it's so hard to visit the grandparents now. Grandpa just seems so tired, and the only conversation that can be had with grandma is about the weather. It's painful in a way, painful to think of the days when I could discuss the future, and how University was going, and what I was planning to do with my life. Now I've lost my friend and confidant, even though the body is still there, but the best conversations now are about the long ago past, long before I was born. It's the only time now when grandma seems like her old self - when she's talking about her childhood memories or about her two sisters, long gone from this world. What a cruel irony - that memories from 75 years ago are held intact, but memories from the last few years are gone.

It's stuff like this that makes me ponder the meaning of life and what our purpose really is. What kind of legacy are we meant to leave during this temporary moment in time? I find myself gravitating towards the senior members of our communities, trying to figure out what makes them content, and how they remain stoic and true while the world around us continues to crumble. Time marches on and the memories are sometimes all that are left, but what are we going to do with this time? I feel like I am standing on the edge of a cliff, and if I would just jump forward, there is purpose and meaning waiting for me that I could never have dreamed of. The tough part is not knowing what the future holds.

But if I could go back in time and sit beside myself in the family room, watching the Dushesnays carve out a masterpiece on ice, I would tell myself to cherish every moment in that house and with family. Another twenty years are going to pass in the blink of an eye, and I want my 57 year old self to be proud of the last 20 years, having missed nothing.