Figuring out who I am (Part I)
As I mentioned in my last post, I am in my 40’s, have a good life, great kid, great husband, I am lucky to have my sister and my mom, a best friend that I know is always there for me, but if you ask me who I am, I would have to say I am still figuring that one out.
So many of us identify as belonging to someone, to a title, to a career, and when you lose any of those… Well, there is a huge empty void that you don’t know how to fill.
I have done pretty much all kinds of work, I went from being a teen mom, having a kid to having a wonderful adult man that is independent and doesn’t need me, at least not the way a small kid needs his mom. I have identified myself as a Mom, Sister, Daughter, wife, I’ve been a realtor twice, worked in a research lab as a phlebotomist (getting people’s blood and processing it), I worked in events, construction and I can keep on going on the list. But all of those job options were in my life because I needed to work, not because I always dreamed to do them, but at the same part they were me, and part of me.
I didn’t love working in customer service and dealing with all kinds of issues daily, I mean if you are calling somewhere is not usually to tell them how happy you are, but I am extremely thankful for this job. It allowed me to be home (it was a home-based customer service job) with my kid when he was little, I could drop him off and pick him up, but being in the house all the time got a little too much for me, especially since I was in my 20’s and I lived in Miami. I needed to see adults and get fresh air and sunlight!
I enjoy medical things, I find fascinating how we have things that we take for granted as antibiotics and blood test! So working in the lab was a great experience, but that kept me from my kid and I’ve always been aware that you can not get back missed time, and kids grow to be adults that have their own lives.
I had moments of being very comfortable money-wise and others that I had to struggle to pay necessities.
I learned to adapt and learned based on what was in front of me and at the same time feeling like a failure. I hated not being able to give my kid everything I would have liked, having to deny things or experiences because I could’ t afford them, I had times that I needed to calculate miles to make sure I had enough gas until I got paid again, but I was thankful to always have food on the table, at least for my son. At the same time, I hated not having a career that brought joy. Don’t get me wrong, I have learned a lot of things that come in handy, I can say he never went hungry and had everything that was needed, and thankfully my sister was able to get him things I couldn’t, and deep down I felt like I was failing.
Sometimes we try and try and is like we are swimming against the current, I have been so tired and lost so many times that I lost count.
A few years back I got my realtor license again, and I enjoyed it! I love to see the joy when people get their keys, watching them plan a new chapter in their lives, and is a fun job, regardless of being stressful at times.
About a year into being back in real estate I started to get tired out of nowhere, but it wasn’t the kind of tiredness that goes away with rest, my heart rate started to spike and drop, I had issues breathing, and every time I was out for a couple of hours I would come home exhausted and in a lot of pain. At some point I had to spend days in bed, I could barely move to go to the bathroom, and trust me, depending on someone is not something I can easily deal with.
If you come to my house, you can be sure that I will not allow you to do ANYTHING! I get extremely anxious having to ask for help. Just to give you an idea I drove myself to the hospital when my umbilical hernia busted open. Therefore being in a situation that I was being less and less capable of doing my normal thing was not only hard, but it made me question myself again. It felt that I had finally found myself.
After about 5 years of going to doctors in the US and being told that I was depressed, that I needed to work out more, lose weight, sleep more, or that maybe it was all in my head, I even got to a point of thinking it was in my head. Finally, my family had enough of seeing my health declining, My mom book tickets for Colombia and off we went with my sister. In 10 days I got more tests and saw more doctors than the 5 years I had tried here.
I went back a couple of months later, more tests, and I was diagnosed with Lupus, amongst other things.
Don’t get me wrong, having a diagnosis after years is great! The not-so-great part is that there isn’t a cure, it’s unpredictable and medications help, but don’t take care of everything. This was my new normal, and I was back to having to question who I was.
As I mentioned in my last post, I am in my 40’s, have a good life, great kid, great husband, I am lucky to have my sister and my mom, a best friend that I know is always there for me, but if you ask me who I am, I would have to say I…