My friend, Michael, had an insight about me the other day into my struggles. He suggested that I am not having an existential crisis, I am having an identity crisis. He said:

You’re wrapped up in “purpose” because the identities to which you’re accustomed have a job description attached: daughter, mother, sister, aunt, teacher, student, etc. But as we age, those identities carry fewer and fewer responsibilities and with your daughter almost an adult, you’re realizing that that was kind of the last meaningful identity you were still carrying that had a specific job description. As we age, those job descriptions become a lot more nebulous and the only identities that you’re really left with are the one intrinsic to your being or your job. Which is why so many people throw themselves into work and make it their whole personality. But your job is unfulfilling on most every level aside from the financial level, which is, itself, unfulfilling because it simply reminds us how we’re all slaves to capitalism. And the identity that’s intrinsic to your self is someone who’s going to have to take risks and put herself out there, creatively. And that comes with fear of failure and rejection. And that’s scary. And that’s why you drink too much lately. Because deep down you know this. It’s not purpose you’re seeking, it’s that your identity is seeking you. And it’s easy to get wrapped up in all those other identities because it’s a way of defining our self by who we are in relation to someone else. But the thing that happens when we grow up and our kids grow up is that we’re once again just confronted with our self. And I think that’s the core of what you’re really grappling with right now. You’re grappling with your sense of self, not your sense of purpose. Because our whole purpose is to fart around and do what makes us happy. But you know that the thing that makes you happy carries risks that are magnified by your perfectionism, fear of failure, and imposter syndrome. So you find yourself putting those things off and occupying your mind with questions that aren’t the real questions and occupying your body with unhealthy coping mechanisms and the coping mechanisms feed the procrastination and the procrastination feeds the coping mechanisms in a loop. And self and purpose are not the same thing. Your self is who you are and the things that make you feel complete. Purpose is what you do. They’re related but not the same. And doing the things that make you happy don’t need to fulfill any kind of purpose. That’s patriarchy and Capitalism talking. And you need to disabuse yourself of their brainwashing.

My thoughts to this observation:

Yes, Capitalism and patriarchy are imbedded deep within my psyche due to the conditioning I have sustained over the last forty-five years. How does that show up? It shows up in my obsession with maintaining a tight, fit body. It shows up in my need to earn as much money as I can to feel safe and protected while also spending my money to maintain a certain level of class and sophistication. It shows up in my feelings of “failure” that I am not using my intellect in my job, that I am wasting my time on Earth in fear of never achieving my potential, a made up measure of “success” to push us into producing. The truth is we all have value just by existing and we are only meant to find meaning in life by our own terms, not someone else’s. So I am on a quest to find my actual self, separate from social and societal conditioning. That requires stepping away from others’ expectations of me or any prior definition of success or happiness as defined by anyone other than me. It also means owning my own footprint and taking responsibility for every moment but also owning that I write those moments not only with my actions and decisions but also with my attitude in any given situation. I preach all the time that we must constantly fight for democracy and real freedom. There is no savior that we could elect to keep the ship righted. Righting the ship relies on all of us. The same goes for freeing my own self from toxic intrusions. I am my own savior; it is up to me, my choice in how I live and approach my life mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I have always said that to find God is to find the true essence of our own divine self, divine in the sense that I am unique, pure at my core, and inherently worthy of love…at my purest self, I am love because God is love. And so my task is to reduce my perception of my self down to its purest and simplest core and then build up again from there. Michael (and my therapist coincidentally enough) suggests I begin by doing what brings me joy and happiness. And so I am taking his advice and doing those things instead of worrying about or wasting my time doing what may or may not be “productive” or what society deems worthy. I realize I am in no position to up and quit my job to find my bliss. However, my job will allow me the freedom to find joy in and around the responsibility. I don’t hate my job; I also don’t love it. But I worked hard to get where I am financially and that has its own freedom…and I work for a relatively good company as far as capitalist-driven employers go. At the end of the day, there is no “right” way to live. We all do the best we can with our lot in life. In my free time, I will pursue said freedom through expressing myself in the form of writing, through friendships, relationships, and lovers, through dancing and celebration, through my exercise of choice in that moment because taking care of this one body is a gift…not to maintain a certain body standard but, rather, to maintain health, mobility, and quality of life. I will continue to seek my own personal freedom through using my voice in various mediums in order to speak truth to power, to help in the social justice fight, and to express all that my experiences and one beautiful life have taught me about love, living, and co-existing on this earth. Although I think the long-term goal is to give up alcohol completely so as not to numb myself to the full experience and expression of an authentic life, I am not ready to give that up completely so long as I use it in moderation in a celebratory manner. Ultimately, I am going to cut myself a little slack and revel in the freedoms I have built in for myself in order to live my true joy and happiness. Today is a reminder that we have this one precious life and nobody gets it completely right. We are all on a journey….one of learning, unlearning, growing, self-discovery, self-expression, communing with others, and loving…both ourselves and others. The tension between the two is the point. Paradox is real, and it is what makes life interesting…and beautiful. Paradox is where day meets night along that horizon of both sunrise and sunset…the complexity of life, the gray areas of understanding, the beautiful uncertainty that makes seeking our own personal joys imminent. As someone who loves knowledge-seeking and is always attempting to understand the world around me, I also know I can only know so much…and so faith becomes another paradox. Faith isn’t believing in answers or truth per se. Faith is believing that we will be okay regardless of knowing the truth. We still seek it; I find that seeking to be a profoundly meaningful and necessary way to live a full life. But the point of it is in walking the path, taking the journey, asking the questions…not in finding all the answers. We may find some answers along the way. That keeps us hungry. But the old cliché is real: You have to stop to smell the roses sometimes and revel in our own beauty, joy, and bliss. This stream-of-consciousness reaction to my dear friend’s insight is everything I already knew deep down but needed to be reminded of, given context, and pulled out of the mire I was emotionally and mentally stuck in. And that is what friendship is meant for….Thank God.