What’s Next?

I was sitting at my desk, and if you are a regular reader, you know what I was staring at, that fucking blinking cursor, mocking me with every flash. So I distracted myself from that blank page and flashing cursor, which I was sure it was blinking out in morse code, you are a failure, you’re not a writer, and picked up my phone and tapped the Instagram icon. I started watching stories of people I follow and came across a story from @thelivdlife, (that’s her, right there in that picture, and you all should follow her here). Usually, I enjoy everything she posts, but today, TODAY, was different. It’s not that she’s not right, but she decided it was going to be #choosedaytuesday. She posed the question, What’s one thing you are going to do today to better your life? Simple right? She sure did make it seem simple, drink more water, read a book, or go for a walk, just pick one thing to make your life better. I usually always find her posts to be inspirational, but today, she had me wanting to throw my phone right off my balcony.

You see, I have been struggling for days, no, for weeks, maybe even years, with what is next. What is my purpose? What am I suppose to do? @thelivdlife was telling me to take a step towards my dream; one simple step was all I needed to do today. However, my question to her is “What if I’m out of dreams?” I know that makes it sound like I’m slightly dead inside, but I’ve realized at 52 I have achieved all my dreams. I know, I can hear all of you, screaming at me through the computer, “oh, you poor poor thing” or “oh what a tough life you must have” or even “well go out there and do some good” all dripping with so much sarcasm and you’re not really wrong. But here is all the things that ARE wrong with those comments and what I’m sure people can’t understand, what happens when you have or have had everything you wanted.  Now what?  Add to that I’m an inherently lazy person — the laziest.  No really – yesterday I sat in my bed and binged watched the entire season of The OA. Eight episodes which are a total of eight hours. I got up to pee and to fill up my water bottle.  THAT’S IT! I did not do one single thing other than that the whole day.  Some people will say, well it’s good to do nothing for a whole day now and then, while I do agree with that statement, that is my norm as opposed to my “now and then” situation.

So all that to say, I’m stuck. But I wasn’t always like this; I had dreams. I had hard times. I thought back through the last 30 years or so and took inventory. Some of those years were filled with dreams coming true, I put myself through Paralegal school, created Cookies by Gina, bought my own house as a single mom, found love a couple of times, opened my bakery, wrote a book. I’ve traveled from one end of the US to the other, from one end of Canada to the other, from one end of Australia to the other and then Cuba. There were also some of those years that had a sprinkling of failure and even some years where things were crashing down all around me. Some of those years were filled with me wondering how I was going to go on. I had years where I wasn’t sure how we were going to pay the next college payment for my chickens or how I was going to afford to put gas in my car, but for the most part, the last 30 years were dream fulfilling and now I’m left with that awful question, “What’s Next, Gina?”

As I took a minute to read the last 650 words, I wanted to vomit and scream at myself to stop being so spoiled and enjoy how lucky you are. But that ever nagging question that makes me think, there HAS to be more, I must be meant for something other than this, but I don’t know how to go and find it, so I’m up for suggestions.

I have to confess that with all the things about my life I’ve shared with you, this one post is the scariest for me to put out there. More terrifying than all the posts I have written about the adultery, the abortion, the eating disorder, the questioning God, my me too moment. This post, took a lot for me to hit the Publish button because it sounds so spoiled, so first world problems, and I’m embarrassed by it all AND, quite possibly, this will bring all the trolls to my blog that I don’t usually bother me.