This week I thought about reinventing my life. Did I mean reinventing myself? After contemplating, I knew that I needed to look closely at myself and decide, is it my lifestyle or is it me.
Me-
I have been changed by circumstances that have happened in my life. This is how it should be, for how can we remain the same when great tragedy happens. Happiness also changes us and I have been fortunate to have much happiness in my life. Love, oh amour, you too changed me and I shall be eternally grateful for those changes. I have become a woman different from the young woman who wanted success in business, success in marriage and success as a wonderful mother.The dream of leaving home, traveling and being a cosmopolitan woman of the world is no longer a dream. I left home, got married, got a job and gave up the dream of being a world traveler and very successful career woman. (Have you ever noticed how “very” is in our descriptions of our dreams). My husband and I worked hard and became successful business owners, which consumes one’s life in ways I never comprehended. Success takes its dues and when dreaming of success one never anticipates the costs. Being a wife and copartner in business can be — NO, IT IS stressful and calls for greater struggles in being successful as a wife. In fact when I first got married, I didn’t even know what a successful wife should be. I just wanted to be one. When I became a mother, I now realize that I didn’t know what being a successful mother was. Does anyone really know?Looking back, I think about all those dreams and how my life changed them from idealistic, romantic ones with new dreams taking their place; ones with more pragmatism and more achievable. I think also some dreams just go away, lost in the day to day struggles to make ends meet.
I have been changed by circumstances that have happened in my life. This is how it should be, for how can we remain the same when great tragedy happens. Happiness also changes us and I have been fortunate to have much happiness in my life. Love, oh amour, you too changed me and I shall be eternally grateful for those changes. I have become a woman different from the young woman who wanted success in business, success in marriage and success as a wonderful mother.The dream of leaving home, traveling and being a cosmopolitan woman of the world is no longer a dream. I left home, got married, got a job and gave up the dream of being a world traveler and very successful career woman. (Have you ever noticed how “very” is in our descriptions of our dreams). My husband and I worked hard and became successful business owners, which consumes one’s life in ways I never comprehended. Success takes its dues and when dreaming of success one never anticipates the costs. Being a wife and copartner in business can be — NO, IT IS stressful and calls for greater struggles in being successful as a wife. In fact when I first got married, I didn’t even know what a successful wife should be. I just wanted to be one. When I became a mother, I now realize that I didn’t know what being a successful mother was. Does anyone really know?Looking back, I think about all those dreams and how my life changed them from idealistic, romantic ones with new dreams taking their place; ones with more pragmatism and more achievable. I think also some dreams just go away, lost in the day to day struggles to make ends meet.
To paraphrase Martin Luther King, “but praise God, I’m not the woman I once was” I still strive to become the woman I ought to be and this brings me to back to the question, do I want to reinvent myself or reinvent my lifestyle?
“I may not be the man I want to be, I may not be the man I ought to be, I may not be the man I could be, I may not the may not be the man I can be, but praise God, I’m not the man I once was” Martin Luther King