Peace and Contentment

I think I’ve been searching for peace and contentment for so long that it made me consistently anxious and ungrounded.  The worst part is, I don’t think I even knew what peace and contentment were.  If I had found it, I wouldn’t have known what to do with it.  In the last 2 years, I’ve been very blessed in many ways.  I have a fantastic family.  I’ve really grown to realize how much they love me and I love them.  I have a wonderful girlfriend and she has a wonderful daughter.  I have a job that I value and feel proud to go to almost everyday.  And, in the next 6 months, I am moving towards becoming licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist.

All of this has allowed me to feel content in a way that I never have before.  Up until a couple of years ago, I was constantly running, while feeling like I could never be safe.  It is not something that I really understood.  I did not comprehend how limiting this was.  I was always on the edge of running out of money, not having a stable place to live, and having to depend on my dad, my mom or one of my siblings to bail me out.  It was a pattern that I kept reinforcing with my immaturity but, for some reason, I didn’t see it that way when it was happening.  It was simply the only way I could figure out how to live.  I guess, to some degree, I felt that I was special and therefore didn’t need to have that boring 9-5 job like everyone else.  A friend of mine once said, “I don’t want to be one of those people who drives to work everyday in a steel coffin.” I sort of felt that I wanted to live the same way but, the difference is, he actually had a real job and didn’t have to have others take care of him the way I did.  Only now, at the edge of my 40th birthday with all the things that I’ve listed above occurring to me, do I realize how much that hurt me and my growth.

I guess the reason for this post is that I want everyone who has helped me become the person I am to realize that I appreciate them, their support and their love.  Again, I feel blessed.