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Purpose in My Heart

Posted on April 13, 2021 by Kaylin Stravalli

I woke up one morning last week with a purpose in my heart. Do you ever have that feeling? The one that feels like some of the thousands of tiny pieces you’ve been trying to fit together finally fell into place in your heart while you slept? It’s a weird one, for sure, but also… one of the coolest.

It was like all the sleepless nights I have spent trying to figure things out, all the working dreams I have had, and all of the things (big and small) that I have done and accomplished over the past several years FINALLY paid some dividends.

There was no real Aha! moment. Nothing that I woke up thinking was new. In fact, it was a bunch of thoughts I have all the time. Wishes I make regularly. Dreams I dream every day and night. So what was different?

This feeling.

I woke with a purpose in my heart to do the things I have been wishing and hoping and praying for my whole life. I felt filled with the knowledge that I was meant for it. I felt certain that it was one of the reasons I was put on this planet, that it was my way to make this world just a little bit better place to be, and that somehow, some way it was going to give me the life I’ve always felt I was meant to live. I felt confident that I was ready to move forward.

Sacrifices, compromises, and a lot of time and sweat equity will be required, but I’m finally ready to make them. I’m finally ready to pursue the things that have long felt like pipe dreams, wishful thinking, or a child’s naïveté.

And when those thoughts creeped in…Who am I to do this? What makes me qualified? What if I fail? What if I make a fool of myself? I answered myself.

Why not me? I have the education, the experience, and the interest.

What if I never try, never just do the darn thing, never put myself out there? I would regret it, and I would always wonder what might have been. I would never know how it might have changed the course of my life in ways big and small.

And honestly, I need to find a way to get back some of the qualities of the girl that I was growing up because that girl beat to her own drum and did not give a rip if it didn’t make sense to other people. It made sense to her; it made her happy; and that’s all that mattered.

Even if I fail or it doesn’t work out or it leads me down a path I never expected, at least I will know I did so by stepping out on a limb, hoping it can bear the weight of a lifetime of dreams. I will have done so trying. I will have learned and grown and ended up somewhere new. My Quality of Failure will get an A+. And that is a much better life than playing it safe and always wondering where it would have led me.

So what is the nagging idea that resurfaces in your sleep and in your daydreams? What distracts you when you’re busy doing all the things you “have to” do and makes you think, I could be doing so many other things, like ______ and is always the thing that fills in the blank.

If I were a betting woman, I’d bet something just popped into your head. What is it? Are you ready to listen to that voice yet? Are the pieces starting to fall into place in your heart?

Maybe they are, or maybe you still need some time to work your way around it before you can zero in on that thing in the center. This process is good and necessary. It leads to the Aha! moments that feel a lot more like the truth you’ve always known making itself perfect clear – in neon.

You Follow Your Arrow, and I’ll Follow Mine.

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Kaylin Stravalli

My sister sent me this article a while back that she’d happened upon and reminded her of me. She apologized for if she had ever made me feel this way. I read the article, and it hit just a bit too close to home. I had a choice to make. I could be honest. Or I could sugarcoat things, make it seem like hearing those questions and being forced to answer them hadn’t made me feel the exact way Amanda felt.

I chose honesty.

I told her, yes, she had, but I knew she didn’t do it knowingly or out of malice…and that she wasn’t the only one. Scores of people made me feel that extreme sense of failure and inadequacy – friends, family, colleagues, relative strangers, people I passed on the street without a word.

How could all these people make me feel like the pavement they ground under their feet, you ask? Well, listen to the song “Follow Your Arrow” by Kacey Musgraves, and you’ll understand. But in my own words… By breathing. By having a good job or one that makes them happy and they enjoy – or worse, both. By having someone to share their life with. By getting engaged, getting married, and having kids. By getting a house or a shitty apartment they loved because it was theirs and a dog. Damn it, for having everything I wanted, didn’t have, and couldn’t get on my own.

That was the worst of it. Having to put myself out there over and over again, yet having to depend on someone else’s mood, whim, or feelings to make my dreams come true. Oh, it burned my butt to face that fact.

I was miserable, bitter, depressed, resentful, and jealous of pretty much everyone around me. I tried to mask it or hide it the best I could, but as those who know me or have met me can attest, I have no poker face. Since I couldn’t hide all, if any, of my feelings, I withdrew.

I minimized the time I spent with friends and family who were happy and had the things in life I cherished most. Don’t get me wrong; I was deeply and genuinely happy for them to have so much to fill their lives, people and things that only add to their happiness and joy – at least to my eyes. I loved them and I celebrated their successes and accomplishments, their engagements and their weddings and their babies…and then I went home and cried and threw myself a nice big pity party.

It was pathetic and unattractive. I knew it and I hated it, but I couldn’t seem to help the way I felt every time someone asked me: What are you doing now? Do you have a boyfriend? Have you moved out yet? Oh, so what do you want to do with your life?

I was single, unmarried, living with my parents, didn’t have a career, and the future was bleak and blurry. I had no idea what I wanted to do.

Well, folks, not a whole lot has changed about that, except my attitude. I had a boyfriend and thought things were lining up to give me my happily ever after – I still think they were, only not in the way I’d been expecting. We broke up, and I had to take a good, hard look at what I was doing, how I felt and why. I was devastated to see my life’s dream seem to slip just a little further away, that is, until one day something clicked.

A door closed on bitterness and sadness, and a window opened to a breath of fresh air. I was free. I could do almost anything I wanted (within the confines of the law, of course) and the only things holding me back were me and my attitude.

So, I stood up for myself. I stopped throwing myself first class pity parties. I made the effort to surround myself with happy people and let some of their happiness rub off on me. I started thinking more positively and making plans to do and see and accomplish things that mattered to me. I realized that this was the last time in my life I would have the time, the means (as long as I worked hard and saved strategically), and the opportunity to go and do and see and just be while only really having to do so for one instead of for two or for a family.

It was time to explore, to discover, to take risks – personally, professionally, and romantically, if I so chose.

Once this mindset was adopted, I was much happier and much more content with my life and with myself. I may not have my dream job, but I’ve made steps in the right direction. I may still be single and unmarried, but I’m enjoying it until someone’s path crosses and joins mine. I may not have a family of my own yet, but I know it will come in due time.

Do I enjoy all of this everyday? Um, no. I just cried the other day to my mom about how these things get to me and make me a deep shade of blue, but – and it’s an important but – my days of happiness and contentment in my current situation far outweigh the darker days.

So before you say, “You better get on it!” or “tick tock” or imply that I’m not where I’m “supposed” to be in life – bite your tongue. I’m finding my way just as you struggled to find yours. I won’t judge you for your life path; so please, don’t judge me for mine. I will find my way, but I can guarantee ours won’t be the same, nor are they meant to be. You follow your arrow, and I’ll follow mine.