Lesson 3: What is Missing?

I skipped last week - what was missing? Time and Balance. One of my employees has COVID. He's the employee who produces the most work and is in charge of the most things. He's SO good at his job. Not having him around was terrible. Thankfully he's doing well. He's going to work this week but we're not telling anyone. He's just going to quietly work when he's feeling up to it.

Anyway - The lesson this is week starts with tell you to think about what you feel is missing from your life. I think I have most everything I want except love - romantic love. I have a loooottt of love in my life but I really do want a partner. So that's what I've chosen without reading the questions first. Now I need to answer each of them...

• What is it that you feel is missing from your life right now? List as many or as few items as you like. Romantic Love & Work/Life Balance.

• Is there something that you had in the past that you wish you still had? Romantic Love: Yes. I was married for 17 years and have been in several long term relationships. Work/Life Balance: No. I have always had an issue with getting absorbed and not being balanced in my approach.

• Do you feel like you are simply destined not to have some of the things you may want out of life? Where did this belief come from? Romantic Love: No I don't think I'm destined to be without - most of the time. There are moments. Day when I'm lonely as hell. I want someone to chill on the couch with at night.. at those time I wonder how or when or if that will ever happen. Work/Life Balance: I'm not sure how to answer this question. I guess in some ways I do feel like I'm not destined to be balanced with work/life? I LIKE working hard at my job. So maybe I am balanced for me sometimes? I just know I'm also prone to pushing until I'm feeling kind of burnt out. Trying to keep at just the right amount of busy is a fine line I'm always trying to find and adjust to but I feel like the landscape at work changes too fast.

• Is there a time in your past that you "realized" it just might not be in the cards? Romantic Love: I had to stand firm in my decision not to return to my marriage. It was what I "knew" and therefore "comfortable". Leaving my marriage meant giving up my dreams of a long term marriage. 40th wedding anniversary - that kind of thing. I will never have that. Because my marriage failed and now I'm too old to get to spend an entire life with a partner. I can still obviously find and have a wonderful man and a long term marriage. But I'll never have the thing I envisioned when I was young. That's gone. Work/Life Balance: ... no.

• Can you think of anyone you know that has the thing that is missing from your life? What did he or she do differently than what you're doing right now? Romantic Love: Sure - lots of people. I don't think anyone has done anything different. There are a thousand stories with a thousand twists and turns. My story is... mine. It has all it's own twists and turns. I hope one of them in the future is a partner that will love me for who I am. Work/Life Balance: Of course. Some of the people I work with are really good at quitting at certain times and still working hard when they're online.

• Why do you think this thing is missing? (lack of time, finances, energy, etc.). Try to find as many "reasons" as you can. Romantic Love: I don't know. Right now I'm not looking very hard. I sort of on/off chat with men but I don't have the energy to put into searching. I do hang on to the friendships with past relationships. I don't know if that's good for me or not. Maybe I put too much energy into that? Work/Life Balance: I don't think anything is missing. I think I'm hella ambitious and I want to do a kick ass job at work because of that I forget to focus on my home or self care or doing something fun with my daughters or ... anything else. I just get very focused.

• Can you think of one small step you could take toward finding/getting this thing that is missing? Romantic Love: I could put more effort into these chats. Men reach out to me every day and I mostly ignore them. I guess I've kind of lost faith in the process. I don't know what I want from them any more. Or if I want them to need more at any point. I can't handle that right now. Work/Life Balance: Oh lord. I really think I'm just going to struggle with this all my life. I have to make a conscience effort to NOT work. I did it this weekend. I worked over 60 hours in 4 days... by Friday I was fried. I did a couple of Friday meetings but mostly I just answered IMs. At the end of Friday I shut my laptop, put it away and didn't open it again until Monday morning (today). I'm not ready for it to be Monday. I need another day. *sips engergy drink*