Finding it...

So, there's been some soul-searching going on in a friend's life. I don't think she'll mind you knowing who she is (since I think the three people who read this blog read her blog too). It's Dee.

Her ruminations, and the struggles I'm having in my own life have me thinking.

I'm not a humble person. Really, I loathe the know-it-allness, and center-of-the-worldness that is me. But, that's who I am. Chalk it up to being practically perfect in every way and being the oldest and only daughter of an adoring mother. Maybe I've fooled some of you, but I think you've all had a brush with the I-can-do-anything and I-have-all-the-answers me.

So, not surprisingly, I've known my whole life that I'm destined for something big. The effervescent thought of grandeur floated in my head for all of my youth before solidifying in the Fall (or the fall) of 2001. What was I doing with my life? I wanted to stand up and mean something in the world, share me with those who needed... me.

I wanted to do something practical... ha ha, as far as I got was giving blood in October. Papa talked me out of joining the military. Money talked me out of going to school to become a nurse. I continued to labor in my non-world-changing computer programming job. I felt I had no skills to volunteer for anything valuable.

In December I found a new way to procrastinate at work, and began several long months where kind accolades for my amateur writing had me envisioning my name on hard-bound spines lined up in bookcases across the country. But I'd start with a smaller dream, my name on paper spines in the Romance section at Barnes and Noble. Chuh. I still harbor a small hope that life will someday combine inspiration and with time and ability, and I'll at least be able to finish writing a book, even if it never shows up in Mass-market paperback.

My enthusiasm for greatness began to wane, until an opportunity for volunteer work arose in 2003. I think that might be my moment of humanitarian greatness. It was 2 weeks.

About the same time my heart told me it was time for a baby, even if my husband told me it wasn't. Ever since that time, it seems, he and I have been at odds. Biology won the day, and today I have a beautiful 10 month old. And now I've realized something.

I was destined for great things. And this is it. I have found great satisfaction in being Eve's mom. I don't feel like I'm searching any longer to find what it is I should do with my life. And I don't feel like I've lost my freedom to pursue greatness. Greatness is upon me.

I am far from satisfied with my life, as it is far from perfect. But I am satisfied with my role as wife and mother. Before I became pregnant, I would never have believed I would say something like this, but I've come to realize that motherhood is the highest calling. It requires sacrifice and dedication to the nth degree, and even at 10 months, it's more rewarding than anything else I've ever pursued or accomplished.

I've found it.