“Kendra, you’re never going to be really satisfied until you find the real thing again,” he said, oh so correctly. “You’ve had the real thing and you know what it feels like. Nothing else is going to fill that anymore.”

He was qualified to make this comment. He knew the stories of many of my escapades. He was one of my escapades. He also knew my broader story, the one that goes beyond bad jokes and bad behavior.

Despite the fact that when we first met he called me a blonde (actually, he just asked his aunt who “the cute blonde” was) and was the cause of the removal of the blonde streak in my hair, when we actually got to know each other we became good friends. As one of those almost brutally honest people who are also pretty insightful, he usually sees what’s really going on with me with startling clarity. And then he tells me about it.

That night his words surprised me.

But they were true.

I was never satisfied because I had experienced satisfaction that was deeper than the physical. All the little pieces suddenly mentally fell into place and I got it.

That little conversation caused me to start thinking about the other places in my life where I feel that lingering sense of being unsatisfied and to try to figure out the root of it. There seem to be three areas where I’ve got that going on.

  My Apartment

My 510 sq. ft. of living space is perfect for me in so many ways. It’s new, pretty, has a washer and dryer, dishwasher, and air conditioning, is right next to the bus tunnel so I can catch any bus at any time, and has enough sound insulation that I don’t have to hear what my neighbors are doing unless I try really hard and put a glass up against the wall… not that I’ve ever done that… once.

The problem is that right after I moved in I got really sick twice in a row and then that one night happened. I never made my apartment into a home. There are still boxes in my living room. I have a table but no chairs. I don’t have a tea kettle, a coffee maker, a TV (though I don’t really want one), a proper clock, a headboard, a bed frame, or a proper bookcase.

Though I used to claim it was because I didn’t have money, my bank statements would beg to differ.

I’m slowly working my way through each room now, purchasing furniture, cleaning what I’ve let get messy, and redesigning it to make it feel like home.

My bathroom is pretty.

I’m nesting.

My Body

Why hello captain obvious? This was the point of my original blog, after all. I’m not happy with a 200-something pound body. I’m not happy with an achy, I-feel-like-shit-on-a-regular-basis-and-feel-like-I-look-like-a-slob, physical situation.

Obviously I’ve been working on this for a long time but the big problem was that I stopped taking care of myself because I stopped valuing myself. I stopped seeing myself as worth it and the idea of effort on my own behalf felt pointless. Seven therapy sessions later, I’ve pinpointed a lot of the reasons I felt this way and am working through them. I’m back on track again, have already lost some weight, and feel oh so much better.

I accepted the bit of regain and set back I caused and now I’m working again on moving forward.

My Job

I’m really grateful to have a job with stability, security, and paid time off. I’m also really grateful for the paycheck. Even more so, I’m grateful for all the times I get to giggle during the day because of our incessant use of the word “penetration” in reports. I do love engineers.

 Yet, I’m supporting someone else’s goals. I’m working to realize someone else’s vision. There’s no room here for my goals, vision, and dreams. I want to build something of my own.

I’m doing that in my vocal training but I want to do it in a more immediate way as well.

While I’m excellent at what I do, it doesn’t excite me at all. I wait for the weekend every week just for some breathing room, time to cook, and time to allow me to do my own work on this blog and other things.

Yep, I spend most of the weekend working, but it’s my work so it feels energizing despite it.

The dream of singing and writing for a living has captured me so thoroughly. Even when I thought it couldn’t possibly be a viable option I still dreamed of it. Now I have visions in my head of how I could, perhaps, make it work. Those visions, in the meantime, leave me unsatisfied with building someone else’s vision.

The remediation for this, though, is a bit more complicated than what I need to do for my apartment and my body. It takes much more time, planning, and risk.

I’ve been working on a plan for a few weeks now and I might have finally put all the pieces together well enough to be able to start acting on it.

*******

And so, in all parts of life, I strive for the real thing. Just going through the motions doesn’t do it for me anymore. I want to be satisfied. While, according to Susan Miller, Saturn is in my fifth house until October and finding love will be difficult until then (I can’t believe I just said that), I’m going to work on areas of my life where I have control and can bring myself to a place of being satisfied.

Is anyone else in this place right now? What are you doing to change things? I definitely want to hear your stories because I need all the inspiration I can get!