A Lesson on Inhabiting My Own Life

This entry is a response to The Daily Post’s 25 August word prompt: inhabit.

I have spent years trying to make others happy, thinking about what others need. I’ve spent an even longer time daydreaming about the way my life ought to be, or the kind of life that will one day make me happy.

But wake-up calls happened and I have been asked: “In all of the dreams you mentioned, were you even there? I cannot find you in it.”

While there isn’t anything wrong with giving, I guess I got the whole giving and loving thing wrong. I was supposed to be happy and caring for myself as I gave it, not depleting myself and considering others’ happiness as more important than my own.

In addition, I thought I would begin to live AFTER I finally achieve my goals.

So now I dare myself to live out this lesson: to inhabit this moment, to live and experience my life as it is, not merely as I would have things be. I want to know what gifts are in store for me here, now, not in the distant future.

I want to inhabit the self I have been given. To know what truly makes me happy, and begin to give and love from a place of joy and contentment. To nurture and grow the skills I have, then share it with the world.

Even as I imagine my life’s possibilities, I’d like to inhabit this space, this time. Be fully present. I’d like to minimize the times I wish I was in another woman’s shoes.

I want to be able to say, at the end of each day, “Today, I have fully lived.”