“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.” ― Aristotle

I have been thinking a lot lately about what I would do if I had one year left to live. It has been useful while trying to answer the question, "What do you want?"

This question was asked to me back in May, by a therapist. I couldn't really answer her. I mean I gave her a few of my stand by responses, but ultimately told her I didn't know. In the car on the way home, I asked myself the question again, and then I balled my eyes out. It was a good cry, the kind that feels terrible for a few minutes, but then offers you a sense of peace afterwards. 

I had chosen that particular therapist because of a quote she shared on her bio page:

"It is never too late to be what you might have been." - George Eliot

So the first step has been to convince myself that it is not too late for me. Maybe until now I just haven't been sure enough of myself, or have let myself get swept up in other people's passions, or other people's perceptions of me, or maybe I just haven't considered myself worthy enough. One of the reasons that I cried so hard asking myself that question back in May is that I realized just how little I really let myself love me. How undeserving I sometimes feel. Who am I to be loved?

"What do I want?" To answer this, I have been trying to think in terms of limited time. Time sometimes feels too open ended, when really the days fly by. I don't know why, but thinking of it in terms of "You have on year left to live, what do you want?" or "If you had six months left to live, what would you want to accomplish?" is making it easier for me to free myself up for honesty. It's much easier for me to admit that there are lots of things I tell myself I want just because they are the easy responses to give rather than the real answers. 

November. It's already November of 2012. I am 26 years old. On good days lately I feel hopeful. I feel like I can make things happen for myself. I feel powerful, I feel like it would maybe be ok to let myself be fabulous again, if I ever was. 

On bad days, I am afraid. Afraid that at the end of the day, all there will be are these ups and downs and that at the end of the day nothing matters at all. Great happiness or great sadness. I have experienced them both, and does it matter? My mom often said, "Things could always be worse." We say these things to ourselves because we know that really that's just a moot statement. Of course things can be worse, and they can also be better. So what does it matter? 

So I guess I am just spending time figuring it out. Does it matter? I don't know yet, but I am still excited enough by life to want to find out more. One problem is that when I do feel hopeful and ambitious, I get overwhelmed by the longing. I do want things. I want so many things it feels like there could never be enough time to fit in all the exploring and learning and growing that I want to accomplish. 

I am trying very hard to forget everything I think I know, and start letting myself discover the personal truths that are sorting themselves out in me. I am just a hodgepodge in progress. Not perfect, not already ruined, not too late, too old, too anything. I am just me.

Here is a poem that I love for this time of year. Robert Frost is always good for my soul. 

My November Guest

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,

Thinks these dark days of autumn rain

Are beautiful as days can be;

She loves the bare, the withered tree;

She walked the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.

She talks and I am fain to list:

She's glad the birds are gone away,

She's glad her simple worsted gray

Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,

The faded earth, the heavy sky,

The beauties she so truly sees,

She thinks I have no eye for these,

And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know

The love of bare November days

Before the coming of the snow,

But it were vain to tell her so,

And they are better for her praise.

- by Robert Frost

This poem comes to mind anytime this month that I have walked around Minnehaha creek near the Southdale Library in Minneapolis. The creek is so shallow and calm you can see the trees and sky perfectly reflected, almost like if you stepped in you would really be in another world. There was a time that I hated winter. Now, I don't know if I could live without the changing seasons. The cold coming and everything hibernating and the trees losing their leaves.