what am I doing here?

I don't feel like I am a good writer. The truth is, I don't really feel like I am good at anything. I have struggled with this feeling all my life. I used to stress so much about what I wanted to be when I grow up. I would ask my mom to list all the options of potential careers for me. Nothing she named seemed right. I just didn't get excited about anything. Many years later, when I was in my early 30s, my dad and I were talking about writing and he said, "You don't just wake up one day and say 'I want to be a writer.' Only people who are truly passionate about writing will do it and a very small percentage of those people will actually be successful. You don't do it for the sake of doing it you do it because you can't not do it." This conversation has really stuck with me as the truth of what he was saying seeps deeper into me. You don't choose something because you just want to be good at something, you don't just choose a career so that you have a career. You pursue what you love, what you are passionate about, and the reward is that you do what you love, what you are passionate about. Success and careers are the byproduct. They must be complete afterthought. In fact it really seems that most successful people are surprised by their success, not expecting it. So how do I find success, or completeness, or wholeness, or that feeling of 'this is what I was made for' if it is something I should be surprised by? That can't be the goal, because you aren't surprised when you reach your goals. What is the goal? I've been reading a lot of really good books that address this issue and they all word it in different ways but it just dawned on me that they are pretty much saying the same thing. The goal is to find beauty, find yourself, find yourself beautiful, find God, find God in yourself, find your true self, find your connection with those around you, find your own uniqueness. There are so many ways of expressing it but no formulas for how to attain this "it." I feel like I haven't attained it yet but I also don't feel devastated by that realization. I'm still searching. Sometimes when I think of my kids it makes me panic, aren't I supposed to have found "it" by the time I have kids so I can be the right mom? What if they leave home and I still haven't found "it" yet? How do I balance searching for "it", which seems really important, and being a mom, which seems HUGELY important? But I still want to be good at something, and I want to not be able to not do something. I want to have something to offer to the world. I don't know where to start, but I know I need some sort of outlet to process my journey. I may not find the finish line but I will document my journey well so I will remember which paths I took. That is what I want to do with this writing. Just document the journey. I think we all want someone to witness our lives. I try as a mom to be a witness to my kids by being present with them as much as I can. Present with my body AND my mind. I want someone to witness me, too.