I Don’t Know What I Want, I Just Know I’m Done

One of the biggest messages as a mother we get is to put on our life vest first. That we can’t pour from an empty cup. The people around us are only as good as we are to ourselves. All of which is true, but the reality is the hardest woman to help is never the one in crisis. She hasn’t gotten to the point of bracing herself or reaching for that life vest.

The one that really needs the support is the one who says “I don’t even know what I’m asking you for.” She doesn’t look like she is falling apart. Actually she looks fine on paper, amazing even. She has the great job, or wonderful marriage, maybe kids, or all three. Outside looking in nothing is on fire, yet she can’t pinpoint the one thing that is off.

She’ll tell you, I don’t know what I want.

All she knows is she is kinda done.

I remember in the last year of my marriage being at that point. Unable to figure out why things felt wrong, even though every bit of it looked right. We have all come to that point, if you have lived long enough maybe you have come to that point a few times.

Being done with the version of yourself that has been running things. Done with pretending the thing that used to fit still fits. And underneath that, a little bit terrified, because the next thing is unclear. Just an ending with no beginning attached.

Why We Can’t Name What We Want

Here is what I have witnessed. Women who cannot name what they want are almost ALWAYS women who were never asked.

Over + over again we hear the same story in different fonts. If you spent thirty years arranging yourself around what other people need, you won’t develop a muscle for wanting. What you develop instead is a muscle for scanning + redirecting. What does the room need, what does he need, what do the kids need, what does the job need + the list keeps going. Wanting has a requirement. It requires you to be the subject of your own sentence + a lot of us have been walking around being the verb this whole time.

So when that question finally gets asked, what do you want, there is nothing there. Not because we are empty or don’t have a need. It’s because the space was never created for us to want.

Truth Moment? I’m never concerned about the woman who can’t answer the question. My eyebrows raise at the woman who answers too fast, because more often times than not it’s not her answer. It’s just an answer she picked up somewhere to have something to say.

What We’re Actually Asking For

When a woman comes to me at this stage saying that she wants some sort of change but is unsure of what, she is almost never asking me to give her a plan.

What I am being asked is to witness her while she figures it out. To be a sounding board + even a void.

That is the whole thing. She wants someone in the room that isn’t going to rush her into a decision, hand her a five-year vision board or “make” her be productive about it. What most folks need is someone who can sit in the not knowing part with them long enough that the not knowing stops being an emergency.

You know what happens when we don’t do that? We panic. We grab the nearest available change. Maybe a new job, new city, new relationship or big haircut. Not because it is the right step, but because the ambiguity got unbearable + at least a decision feels like a step moving forward to something.

A lot of women make expensive choices just to end the discomfort of not knowing.

How do I show up

I stopped asking what does she want. The question + answer is not available to her just yet.

Instead I ask what she is done with. That she knows. That will roll off the tongue. She can list that one fast + with a little bit of heat. That list is the first honest data she has produced probably in years.

Then we look at what is underneath each item. Because being done with a job sometimes really means they are done with being underestimated which is a completely different problem than employment. Done with the marriage sometimes means being done with being the only adult in the house. The surface answer is almost never the actual answer.

And slowly, from the negative space, a shape shows up. Not a five-year plan. A direction. That is enough to move forward.

Try It: Your Done-With List

If you want to try it out for yourself, get a piece of paper + write Done With at the top. Write fast + with heat. Don’t edit it. Then next to each one, write what’s underneath it. You’re not making a plan. You’re finding the shape.

Most of the time we are not lost. We are somewhere between. Those are not the same things + there really hasn’t been language created around the second one, so don’t use words like failure when describing something that is really a transition.

Nobody owes anyone a five-year plan. You actually do not have to know. And you are allowed to be a woman who is done, sitting in a doorway, waiting to find out what is on the other side.

Only thing I’ll say is do not sit in that doorway alone. That’s the one that I will fight you on. The not knowing gets way more bearable when somebody is in it with you + it gets real dangerous when you have to carry it alone.

XO

Denawa Deniece