“But, ZB, what do you want?” A question presented to me more often than I like. In this, the year when I have learned to allow rage, I find that this question makes me angry. The trickiest trick question ever asked. This feeling rage thing tends to be a little purple flag, telling me that my rage means, “whoah there, time for a ponder.”

Where do I even begin on this ponder? It is clear to me now that the reason this question upsets me is that it is a lifelong issue, I am only now recognizing.

To be perfectly honest, I had a very real moment this spring when my inner monologue caused me to come to a full stop. Question asked, yet again, and my inner monologue screamed, “what does it f-ing matter?”

Okay, perhaps the rage is a bit built up!

For whatever reason, societal conditioning, childhood mishaps, life being life, I came to feel that it really doesn’t matter what I want. I tend to only state bold opinion or ask for something when I feel strongly about something. People like to push back, and I don’t. The push back seems to make me feel like my stance has been stamped “denied” with a giant comedy stamp, all Monty Python cartoon style. I always end up feeling that it is a trick question and that the asker doesn’t really want to know my answer, so why bother asking in the first place?

There are people who delight in “yeah, but” state, people who enjoy a good solid “yes, and” way of life and I guess I head towards “well, never mind then.” This realization does not thrill me at all. Actually, I am really quite annoyed about it.

Fatigued by my own inner monologue, I realize I’ve been stuck in a rut. So far into the never mind lifestyle, that all my wants had vanished. Not by some actual decision, just little by little, shelved away in storage. I just sort of stopped having wants.

Life on a world scale feels a little hopeless and choiceless. Work life allowed me to dive into a task driven existence. Home should have been my free to want space, but I was not allowing it. I stayed in the task zone at all times. Living task life somehow gave me the illusion of control. Given a chore, I could do it, then feel as though I had value to those around me.

But…what did I want?

I literally didn’t know, I strangled the desires right out of myself. Too afraid to expect anything from others, I could no longer even form a thought of want. Sometimes I would state my want, then that person would say, “well, I want this instead.” Would I push for my desires? No. I would shut down. If I normally don’t know what I want, how could I assert my desires and see it through? Easier to just “never mind, then.”

In short, I guess, I had given up.

That is pretty sad and, it turns out, it frustrates the people around me more than if I just ask for things. My goal was never to frustrate everyone everywhere. Blast.

The wants chased me like a ghost monster thing from a Scooby Doo cartoon. Goals you want in life? What do you want to eat for dinner? Do you want to do this task? Want to help me with this? How do you want to do that? Do you want to go on this trip? Will you want to have these visitors?

Task driven, people pleasing robot me, answered, “sure, I can.” to everything. As good a non-answer as any.

At this point it felt like work to want stuff. It meant that I would need to push through my own discomfort at actually wanting something. There is a chance that I would be required to do the work of showing someone else what I meant, or how I wanted to do something. I had to make time to do what I wanted. Then, the worry that I would disappoint, annoy or let others down was also very real. Also, I had to want something enough to use energy to make it happen for myself.

A side concern here is, again, the inner voice wondering why I think I deserve things I want, when the world is a mess and people don’t get what they want.

I am super good at being mean to myself.

Feeling like I did not have time to do things I like was an early signal to myself that I was falling into a rut. Time, the ultimate illusion. No time to go to the coffee shop, but plenty of time to sit on the couch unable to make a decision while I watch 3700 episodes of nonsense I am barely paying attention to, because someone might need or want something from me so, best not be invested in something I really want to do, because it would annoy me to have to pause doing something I cared about.

What popped my bubble and allowed me to see this all more clearly?

I very suddenly decided to rearrange my art room. As always, I started with removing garbage and nonsense and made a terrible mess. It became obvious that I was not keeping just art related things in this room. Somehow, I filled this room with storage stuff and things…like I didn’t want to bother the beings in the house by taking up space. Instead, I made my little, tiny art office room space kind of impossible to be in.

So, I sent things to the basement (yes, now I have to tackle rearranging the basement…but not today) and moved nearly every single thing in the room. The result is a room that has some space, feels more inviting and gives me the opportunity to zone out and admire all the art I have been collecting. It feels free and happy and comfortable in here. I bought some new rugs, a lamp and some cute nesting coffee tables from Ikea because I wanted them.

And now, I want to be in here, almost all the time.

Funny side effect? I have been sleeping. Feels like a tangent, but it isn’t. I have not been sleeping well or correctly or…I don’t know…sleep has been an issue for a year and a half or more. Of course, I had written it off as a menopause thing or a stress thing, laughing maniacally when menopause and stress advice suggests better sleep as a solution.

Turns out, rearranging a room because of rage induced by being asked what I want too often and not having an answer made space in my brain to chill out because I had accidentally created a space that I dearly WANTED, and that brain space allowed for actual sleep and now I think many of my inner monologue issues were the result of prolonged sleep deprivation. (Do you have sleep issues too? Serious stuff, take a look! Cleveland Clinic on Sleep Deprivation)

Giving myself a space I want to be in and tending to my wants has created a place where I can focus on just me stuff. Honestly, this room feels a little like the magical hidden spaces I would hide away in as a kid. I had forts inside and outside where I would disappear to in order to read and write stuff, spend time with just me and a stuffed animal or two.

Rest makes a huge difference!

Suddenly, I am rested and have time to do whatever I want to and I am not always falling asleep. I have gifted myself with actual time off from thinking I need to solve all the problems of the world and putting myself on hold, waiting to tend to the needs of other.

This break is everything. I needed this room.

Maybe wanting something was the most important thing I could have done for myself.

It might be good for others too, but I don’t want to think about that just yet.

Ponders and doodles at Course Roasters Course Roasters on Instagram