My friend Tanya wrote a great post this week about feeling a bit lost right now with certain aspects of her life. She spoke about having ideas and wanting to implement them but also lacking the motivation to do so. It is hard when you feel like other people are accomplishing things and you feel like you are just languishing.

My other friend Tonya (no relation, ha!) has moved from Los Angeles to Boise, Idaho, looking for a new start to her life. She felt “stuck” here in California and thought a change of scenery would be just the thing to get her proverbial gears going and forge a new and interesting chapter.

I am totally rooting for my friends as they look to make changes in their lives.

But I also root for them not just because they are my friends, but because I can and do relate.

I feel like my generation (Generation X), was told that we needed to work hard to get into college. After college, get the super well-paying job, find the person you will marry forever and ever, buy a humongous home, have some kids, live happily ever after. The end.

Oh and throw in some female empowerment because The Spice Girls told us so.

Well, fast forward to the here and now and all of us Gen-Xers are in our 40’s and for many of us, we are saying what the hell happened? What am I doing? This life has not gone at all like I expected.

I did everything right.

I followed the rules.

I trusted my intuition.

I did what I was supposed to do.

Why am I unhappy?

And if unhappy is too strong of a word, why do I feel unfulfilled?

This is the part of the post where I say that I do not have the answers nor do I know anyone who does.

But I am putting this all down in writing because I need to get this out. I need to speak what is rolling around in my brain when it is not being diluted by super-happy images of people living their best super-happy lives on social media and/or television.

Because the truth of the matter is that life is not all unicorns and rainbows and I am sure by the time you are old enough to remember watching Molly Ringwald movies in an actual movie theater, you know this.

I think as women, we were sold a bill of goods. We are supposed to have a fantastic career, fantastic husband and children, fantastic home, fantastic friends and family, fantastic coming out of the wazoo, if you catch my drift.

When one of these supremely awesome fantastic things doesn’t happen, we wonder what went wrong with the plans. Here, let me look at that blueprint again, and see where I messed up, so I can course correct and get back on track.

But that is not how life is. That is not how life works. And it doesn’t take into consideration things that happen that are out of your control. We have had happen to us or know someone that it has happened to them, things that occurred that were out of their control, whether it is a job loss, depression, debt, infidelity, infertility, substance abuse, etc… These things that happen to people, are not in the blueprint that we created for our lives.

And yet they happen every day.

For me personally, I feel bad that we lost our home 8 years ago. When the recession descended upon our country, it took my house right along with it. I feel bad, not every day, but most days, that I do not have an actual home for my girls to grow up in, and that we are in an apartment and do not have a backyard. It kills me as a parent that I am unable to provide this for my girls.

And yet I know that losing my home does not define who I am. It does not define me as a person. But some days, the shame washes over me and I feel baaaaaaaad.

Just as having depression does not define who I am, neither should not having a home. I am blessed in other ways and I know that. But my point is, plans go awry. And that is where the lack of motivation, the inability to move forward, and the feeling of ineptitude to overcome, just come roaring in.

If you feel like your life’s blueprint has gone missing, I am here to tell you that you are not alone. I am here and I hear you.

I too, feel lost.

I too, feel unmotivated.

I too, feel unqualified.

But deep down , I feel the flicker of a flame. I feel this thing that just won’t let go. I feel this voice inside me that is screaming for me not to give up and to implement Phase Two, whatever that is.

Direction is moving forward.

My steps may be tiny, but my inner voice is mighty.

We can do this. Who’s with me?