Purpose

As I make my way between crying children, up the stairs to soothe Tyler who isn't feeling well and therefore not wanting to go to sleep, back to the living room where Teagan screams from the swing because her little digestive system is still figuring itself out, back to Tyler who immediately says when I walk into his room "start Scout" (his little computerized puppy dog pal) to which I reply "you know how to start Scout, enough of this crying, you need to go to sleep!" back down to Teagan who was soothed and quiet before I headed upstairs but is now writhing and wailing again, I wonder to myself what purpose I am here on earth for?  I really had no inkling of that answer before I became a mother and now I have just slightly more of an inkling.  Knowing a helpless little human being depends on you for everything tends to make you feel pretty important and give your life some purpose after all.  However, these days I'm looking for more.  I like to tell myself my children are going to be VERY important someday, maybe a world leader or inventor of something that will revolutionize our way of life, etc. and that really gives me purpose...for a few minutes. 

My "aunt" Nancy Prestopino passed away last Saturday after a long battle with Cancer.  I didn't find out until Monday.  I cried a lot that day.  Since then I've just been psychoanalyzing everything about life and meaning and purpose.  We don't ask to be born but here we are and life is what we make of it.  Some of us make very different things of it, some of us make the same things of it, but at the end of the day it is our own and no one else's.  One day we are here and another day we are not.  So what do we do in between?  Some of us are born into downright shitty, scary, inhumane situations all over the world and some are born...with a silver spoon in their mouth.  I sometimes play this game when I'm driving around town where I see someone and I imagine they are someone else.  Like this: I see a woman dressed in a business suit walking back to her office downtown after having lunch - then I imagine she were actually Angelina Jolie without everything that has made Angelina, Angelina.  Or I'll see a guy making drinks at Starbucks and I'll imagine he's Donald Trump without the life that made him Donald Trump.  It's kinda fun, kinda silly but also kinda trippy.  Who could I have been?  Who might I still be?  Probably no one spectacular...although I'm pretty spectacular in my own way, in my own world.  I like to think I am a good friend, mother, wife, daughter, sister, etc. who has made impacts on people's lives.  That's pretty purposeful.  Then again, those  people will be dead someday too just like me. 

I don't believe in heaven or hell, or god for that matter.  I believe in Science and I believe in myself.  When I die that's it, no mas, game over.  It kinda sucks to believe that way, but I can't bring myself to believe any other way.  I can't very well say R.I.P. because I don't think the person is "resting" anywhere and though I like to think they are now "in peace" that doesn't really work either.  Maybe I could say N.I.P. - Not In Pain.  I used to think I wanted to be buried somewhere where the loved ones I left behind can come visit me and bring flowers to my grave and so in some way I still have a place here.  I hated the idea of my body, this vessel that has taken me all over the world, has born two children, has experienced love, laughter, tears, sorrow, fear, anger etc., being slid into some big oven and then burned to ash.  We have one of our beloved late kitties in a box sitting on a bookshelf, at least we assume it's Bootsie in there and not a combination of Bootsie, Scooter, Fluffy and Peetie.  I would like my ashes to be scattered somewhere in that case, somewhere I loved when I was alive...maybe the ocean or a river running through the Sierras.  Or maybe someone would snort me, like one of my children, and then we could be one. 

On Tuesday, the day after I found out Nancy passed away, I was reading through The Holistic Health Magazine which I picked up at the yoga studio last week (yep, I started doing yoga again, although I used to do Bikrham and for now I'm just doing the "regular" kind!) and it was like serendipity!  Or coincidence?  Or ironic timing?  Anyway, I was engrossed in these articles about Self-Healing with Energy Medicine, the Spiritual Side of Exercise and Inner Resolve: An Essential Key to Cancer Survival and Healing.  I ripped several pages out, scribbled notes in the margins and felt more and more empowered and resolute about my life as I swallowed another spoonful of old fashioned oatmeal with fresh blueberries.  I have to be careful about the page tearing though, Tyler sees me do it and thinks that gives him carte blanche to tear out pages as well, in any and everything that has a page that can be torn out.  Is all this hocus pocus or does it really work?  Or does it just depend on the person.  My aunt was such a healthy person, and I know she had the strongest will and resolve to beat Cancer.  Why does it get some people and not others?  I found a suspicious mole on my chest as I was breastfeeding Teagan the other day and I immediately made an appointment with the dermatologist to check it out, and the rest of my moles, but they can't see me until the end of the month.  I'm trying not to freak out, it's probably nothing, but maybe it is and then what?  Can I self-heal with energy medicine?  I've already begun changing my eating habits back to how they were before I got pregnant with Tyler (vegan, unprocessed) my main purpose to lose the baby weight but also now to fend off Cancer, in any form.  I have breast Cancer on my mother and father's side of the family though the doctors tell me I'm not at any extra risk.  Really?! 

I want to be a Health Coach and my purpose will be to help others take better care of themselves so they may live as long as possible.  I suppose some people don't want to live that long, but then they won't be the ones paying me for my expertise, guidance and support.  Taking money for that almost seems like a crime, but appreciation doesn't put food on the table.  I've got some time and a lot of learning before I can officially embark on my version of saving the world, so for now I start with me.  I must resolve to avoid negative thinking and work through toxic emotions such as anger, resentment, jealousy and guilt.  I must resolve to put good food in my body and listen to what it needs, wants, doesn't tolerate and occasionally should indulge in.  I must resolve to be active, to exercise and have fun.  I must resolve to be true to my purpose and create clear intentions with every new page of my life that I turn.  Does all this mean I won't die of Cancer though??  Well, I'm willing to take the chance.   

I suppose I think too much about things instead of living my life.  What about the mind over matter thing?  A therapist once told me that I do over think everything!  I'm not alone here right?  Or is everyone else running around like the tv has gone to snow?  Sometimes I think so the way they are living and what they are putting into their bodies, but who am I to judge?  No, I'm too busy judging myself.  Wait, that's another thing I must resolve to stop ;)

"My intention is to live life on purpose" - Nancy Prestopino, Dec 1943 - Sept 2011

And that she did.