Why Was I Born?

This title comes from an old song from Show Boat, a great musical made into a movie in the early 1950s.

Maggie, the show boat character, then lists several questions--why am I living, what do I get, what am I giving (good rhymes)---and the conclusion is that she was born to love you (him).

I think about this question. What am I doing with my one precious life; what am I supposed to be doing? It's ungodly late to invent another wheel (and not interesting enough to capture my attention). I've had my children and still maintain the first and stable marriage. What's important enough now to pay attention to? Eating healthy food, keeping the house straight, earning enough money to pay the rent , the food, the car and the housekeeping are all no-brainers. What about the rest of my precious time? And what did I miss during those years when raising my children was all I thought about and obsessed over?

Why was I born? To love you and to love myself enough to know what love is? And then what is it to love? The wisest have told me it's about giving to life, about saying yes to the daily challenges of riding the waves of circumstance and making the best possible choices in a world of paradox that put me into the flow of the wider human river.

This takes me back to Show Boat--Can't Help Lovin Dat Man---fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. I gotta love one man till I die. Strange---is it all about using this marriage as a mirror into being fully human? I don't know. It's exhausting to consider.