Where were we? Right…, love, bless her heart! So, step one was to identify the physical and mental attributes. I started to make a list, I think better if I can see what I have to analyze. A visual aid never hurts. Since I can’t afford extravagances, I take a sheet of paper, fold it neatly in two and tear it carefully. I write on one of them physical attributes / appearance and on the other personality and on both I intend to write the likes and dislikes. Ok, let’s think… Hmm… I look around… and see that I need to tidy up the room, and if I’m going to do it, I need to tidy up the whole house. But I also have to make something to eat, because we just have to eat something as healthy as possible, otherwise what kind of mother would I be? And what else do I have to do? Aha, it would be good if I went shopping to make sure we have what we need in the fridge. And we need more of this and that…
As I went about my business on automatic mode, my mind started to wander again. You know those moments when you had to study for a subject you hated with all your heart as a student? That’s how the Romanian language and literature was for me. I was doing well with the grammar part because it had rules that I understood and seemed logical to me, but when I had to think about what the poet was trying to say, I was already getting a headache. I was finding all kinds of reasons and excuses not to learn, because I didn’t understand the subject. I didn’t understand why we don’t have the right to our own opinion about what the author wanted to say. It’s the same thing with success, we were given the recipe, we followed it but we didn’t customize it, we didn’t make it to our liking and needs. We didn’t own it!
Aha, but now I have the right to my own opinion! Now that I can scream it from the top of my lungs, why don’t I do it? Why am I so shaky? Who stops me from continuing but myself? … I told myself to be brutally honest! Ugh… I’m frightened… OK, what are you afraid of? Of what I´ll find out… What if it’s somehow my fault? What If I really need to change something? How will it affect my life? Maybe I’d better be content with what I have, there are others that don’t have even half of what I have. I’m not being grateful for what life has already given me… Hmm… But… I’m not happy like that… Don’t I deserve to feel happy too?
Then why not continue the list? It’s just the fear of the future, of taking risks? What does this mean? If that´s so, why are you getting out of bed in the morning, you might slip and fall in the bathroom! Why are you going shopping, you might get hit by a car when you cross the street! Or… is it the fear of taking responsibility for your own life? Until now you have followed a recipe for success written by someone else, so you can blame someone else, you can point fingers!
Now, any change that you make will have consequences, some desired, some perhaps undesired, some good, some bad, some completely unexpected. If I make them, I have to take responsibility. Whoa, that means, I have to grow up! That means I’m not a mature person!
But… I’m almost 40 years old, I’m a responsible person, I’ve treated many a patients, successfully I could say, I’m appreciated as a doctor and I have the papers to prove it in black and white. I thought I was mature. What the hell is going on here? Have I gone completely insane?
To be continued…
