Staying on track

I have spent the better part of sixty years trying to want what I thought was "right" and the anxiety that produced was enormous.

There was nothing worse than striving for something that had no real meaning to me.  It was like wearing the facade on an old run down building.  Inside I was crawling with doubts, filled with dissatisfaction and mostly just empty.

Of course the basic me was in there and often very content, or even happy doing those things that really did matter to me, raising my children, teaching preschool, writing even if no one read it.

It was all the rest that made it hard.

Trying to be something I am not is possible.  I've done it for years, but it isn't comfortable.

I can take charge and run things.  I can chat inanely in social circles.  I can perform in front of people.  I can do almost anything I set my mind to, but it drains me physically, mentally and emotionally.

Retirement, for me, has not been so much not working because I volunteer more than I worked much of the time, but it has been not doing those things that make me uncomfortable.

I am not the misfit I always thought I was.  I am just on a different track than most of the people I have lived around.  

When I can stay on my own track life is better than I ever dreamed it could be.