The Question That Wouldn’t Leave Me Alone

For most of my life, purpose felt like a distant destination, something I was supposed to discover with enough time or self-reflection. I was living my life, raising my kids, doing all the things, yet the question always lingered in the background. It felt like something I should already know, but somehow didn’t.

I tried to ignore it, but purpose can be persistent. It nagged at me like a child asking for juice while I’m already pouring it. Some part of me was convinced that knowing my purpose was the missing link to a life well lived. I am a daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend, and I love all of those parts of my life, but this sense of purpose still felt unfinished, and I kept thinking I should already know what it was.

What I did know was this. I have always been in awe of life and all its facets. I am not the person I was twenty years ago, ten years ago, five years ago. Honestly, I am barely the same person I was yesterday. Every exchange I have with the world shifts something in me.

And because I recognized that this is my one incredible, beautiful life, I wanted to honour it by doing my part. Whatever that meant. So I went combing through old writings to see if Past Jen had already stumbled on the answer and Present Jen had simply missed it. The truth was yes and no.

Stay with me.

Where some people double down on physical fitness as they get older, I decided to pursue mental fitness instead. Up until then, I had only gone to my therapist, Lou-Anne, who I call The Jennifer Whisperer, when life felt like it was actively trying to knock me out. She was my “things are getting spicy” person, not someone I ever imagined seeing on a schedule.

Then I caught myself wondering what it would be like to meet with her regularly and not just when I was in emotional triage. Hardship is universal and no one gets through life unscathed, but even with solid coping skills it is hard to see the frame when you are inside the picture. Maybe Lou-Anne could help me spot what I had missed. So I committed to showing up, even when nothing felt on fire. Over the last two years, this is what became clear to me.

My brain has lots of thoughts and feelings, but not all of them deserve to take up space. Think of it like a closet long overdue for a Marie Kondo moment. It was full of clothes, shoes, and “just in case” items I had not touched in who knows how long.

When my emotional closet finally burst at the seams, that was when I reached out for help. Lou-Anne and I would pull out one item at a time, lay it on the metaphorical bed, and talk through what it actually was.

I learned something big. The stress I felt in the present was often amplified by the backlog of emotions I had tossed into the closet years ago. I used to think that feeling something once counted as processing it.

Spoiler: it did not.

Here is the plan no one gives you. You have to see what is in the closet. Feel it. Name it. Then fold it and put it away properly. When you do that, emotions stop exploding out like an avalanche. Instead, it becomes more like opening a beautifully organized, colour-blocked wardrobe. I can recognize what is there instantly, and because I know exactly what it is, I can process it faster. No panic. No spiralling. Just “Oh. You again. I know where you go.”

And once I started putting things away properly, I began to notice something else.

I recognized that certain everyday frustrations hit me harder than they seemed to hit anyone else. Some of them felt like a small gut punch that caught me off guard and took a moment to shake off. The feelings were real, but the intensity never matched what was actually happening. When Lou-Anne asked her accurate and disarmingly spot-on questions like When did I first feel this? What was going on? Who did I tell? I began to see that the root was not the moment in front of me at all. It was fueled by old feelings of powerlessness and vulnerability that younger versions of me did not yet have the coping skills to handle.

Fantastic. Two of my least favourite emotions. Any chance joy or whimsy wanted to tumble out instead? No? Wonderful.

Here is the thing. I love organization. My instinct is to pull an entire closet apart in one go and deal with the chaos afterward. What works for linens does not work for the human psyche.

I am two years into this now, and I want to acknowledge my privilege. I work for a company that values mental well-being, and the coverage I have is exceptional. Without that, this quest would have ended before it started. On the flip side, ignoring the support available to me would have felt like leaving a beautifully wrapped gift unopened.

So I kept going. Have I received understanding, grace, and healing? A thousand times, yes. Have I also wanted to bail halfway through a session? Also yes. And somewhere in the middle of all the sorting and naming and folding and putting back properly, something cracked open.

I discovered that searching for purpose is actually meaningless.

My purpose is whatever I am doing right now. That desperate hunt for purpose came from feeling lost. I did not realize how often my brain defaulted to When this happens, then I’ll feel…

When things settle down, then I will feel grounded.

When I figure out my purpose, then I will feel whole.

Once I learned how to recognize my emotions, I saw that I had been treating life like a task list. I was not living. I was persevering.

It was like listening to a song just to get to the end of it. You miss the music, the beauty of it, the moments that matter, the feelings you were meant to experience. You miss all of it.

And once I finally saw that, I couldn’t unsee it.

What I’ve learned is this. My purpose wasn’t something waiting for me to find it. It was already here in the living. And once I learned how to fully feel what was in front of me, thanks to my closet overhaul, I finally saw it. Life is still life, but the purpose is all me.