This week I was surprised by how difficult it was to answer a simple question: What do I want now?
I recently shared that I spent a wonderful vacation at my cousin’s river house in North Carolina. It’s a magical place where all my children and grandchildren have gathered for the past two years for our annual reunion.
I forgot my laptop charger, and because the house was so remote, I was unable to work. Although I can usually work from anywhere, this particular week I was offline. I was wonderfully unplugged.
I always wake early. Before anyone else was up, I carried my coffee to the end of the long dock. I sat in the stillness watching the rhythm of the river and the world awaken—jumping mullet, diving pelicans, the changing light across the water…you get the gist.
Somewhere in one of those mornings, I realized I’ve spent so much of my life in response mode—responding to children, clients, home needs, family and friends, whatever was needed next. I am so practiced at being dependable that I am no longer sure I know what I want.
I do know there is a lifelong longing to return to my earliest passion: fine art. I started drawing the moment I could hold a pencil, filling the backs of used gift wrap and brown paper grocery bags with drawings. By second grade, the principal referred to me as the school artist.
Writing has always lived alongside it. I’ve kept a journal for nearly my entire life and still have stacks of them beginning with my first year of college.
While life required other things, those parts of me have tugged at me off and on. I write for clients on an almost daily basis. My art is relegated to the periodic trip to Croatia, Italy or Yosemite for a dedicated window of immersing myself in art. The natural-born artist in me has waited, sometimes patiently, sometimes not, while other responsibilities came first.
Now the kids are grown and firmly settled into lives of their own. Friends thought it might be time to sell my house and downsize. I love my home and the property on the wetlands behind it. But I also began to dream a little about the life I imagined B.C. (before children).
So I put my house on the market, with a “let’s just see” attitude.
Now friends ask, “Where will you go? What will you do?” I answer confidently, “I don’t know yet.”
I tell them, “Let’s just see if the house sells. I’m leaving it up to the universe. If it sells for what feels like the right price, then I’ll move. If it doesn’t, I’ll stay.”
Then they press gently. “Okay, but what if it sells fast and you have to be out in two weeks? What’s the plan?”
I usually respond with something vague about traveling for a while. I talk about letting the past thirty-something years of child-raising, work, responsibilities and life fall away, to reveal a lighter version of me who will somehow know where she wants to go.
Now I am beginning to see that leaving the decision to the house, the market or the universe may also protect me from having to answer this hard question myself.
What do I want? The truth is, asking myself what I want feels unfamiliar, a pattern I do not recognize. The question feels almost selfish, irresponsible. For so long, desire came after all the responsibilities, if there was room for it at all.
I think about the roles I’ve held as a parent, caregiver and business owner.
Then my view widens.
I think about how many of us spend decades becoming dependable, necessary and very good at responding to what everyone else needs. I wonder how many of us find it hard to answer a question that is only about ourselves.
Perhaps part of growing is learning to ask a question we haven’t had time to ask in years.
What do I want? Maybe not knowing the full plan is okay. Maybe it begins with giving ourselves permission to ask and to want something before anyone else needs it from us.
Maybe it is simply time for me to choose.
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