Once I realized that my life was a mission, I also became aware that I had a home, a center, a place to be sent, a place to come home, to return.

My life had a purpose and my life as one mission after another suddenly made sense to me.

I didn’t have to agonize about who I was, what I wanted, what I didn’t have, and where I was going because a meaningful life is all about having missions and fulfilling them. And knowing they can’t all be fulfilled.

I knew what I wanted.

I started to think of my life as having a center, a structure, although it sometimes changed.

When I set out on my mission and accomplished it,  it was finished, for better or worse,  I began to look for another; I wanted to return home to give an account of my mission – to write about it and share it and learn from it – and then to rest, although not for long.

Fulfillment is not about winning, for me. It’s about trying.

All the years of my life are missions; some are successful, some not.

The Mansion is a Mission, so are the refugee children. The farm is a mission, so was my journey to the country. The Amish were a mission, so were my blog and my photography.

My dogs and other animals were a mission; I was determined to live with them, learn from them, and return to nature and the natural world.

Freedom was a mission that never ended. Writing was my first and most extended mission. I see now that Maria was on a mission; to find love.

There is always a sense of setting out from the normal and returning with what I had learned. My blog gave me a way to do that. Some people cheereed me; some did not. I wandered into the darkness, magical helpers guided me out.

That is the very definition of the hero journey.

My life as missions isn’t about a journey; it’s about a  beginning that will never end.