I was sitting on the bathroom floor of my Manhattan loft, engaging in a-now-typical-ritual — crying my eyes out. I was miserable. I was so depressed. Above all else, I felt lost and trapped. The circumstances were this:  Eric and I were in debt for a house we hated. He had a 2 year contract at work that, if broken, would require a significant sum to pay back our relocation expenses. Besides, Eric worried about his career, his resume, and what it would look like if he ‘washed-out’ of a new job so quickly. I was so miserable, even though I loved Eric dearly, for one of the only times in our marriage,  I thought about leaving him. About going somewhere else, doing something else… only I didn’t even know where I would go…

In my hysterics, I started thinking about how I got here. Not about the decisions of the last few months that brought me to NY, I had already turned that particular set of mistakes over and over in my mind. What I couldn’t figure out is how I got myself so trapped. How I ended up in a life I despised despite all of my careful planning and effort. Despite having so much going for me: I had good health, plenty of money, a graduate degree with honors, an accomplished career with plenty of folks to vouch for my skills.  I had a husband who loved and supported me, a close-knit family and a handful of good friends who would take me in if I asked.  I felt like I should have choices, options. After all,  these are the things I always believed would prepare me for the world, would guarantee a good life. So how on earth was it that I felt so utterly trapped? Helpless? Armed with all these ‘weapons’, yet I struggled to find a move, a plan for attack, a way out of my situation. All I could do was wait.

Obviously, nothing stays still. Over the coming months, my situation shifted — I found comfort in an out of town retreat, new possibilities when my old job invited me to come back and I could split time between SF and NY, my hate tapered, my perspective changed. But I can still viscerally remember the extreme feeling of being trapped, immobilized, on the bathroom floor that day. The power of that feeling has made me realize something else … I can prepare all I want. I can stack-up every advantage I can muster. I can imagine that the skills, personality, favor, etc, that I build will allow me to control my life. That it will give me options and freedom. But, in the end, I am not the master of my life. And, if I am not the master of my own life, can I really expect to be master of anything at all?