Discovering Me

I am back home for the holiday weekend and so I took the opportunity to meet up with some of my best friends from high school. It's always exciting to see them and to be all together again--I don't think I'm old enough to say "like the good ole times" but it's fitting. These get togethers are always a little stiff at first: getting to know who the others are and who they have become. We went from being best friends and knowing the other's business to seeing each other every few months. It's a weird realization, but it's reality.
Anyways, my one friend was talking about starting a non-profit organization in college and we began to reminisce about how involved we were in high school (she was student body president and I was VP... only a little involved). The same non-profit that she is starting at her school is at mine and she asked if I was on the exec board or how involved I was. I am not that involved, just your standard, run-of-the-mill volunteer. I love my role in the organization and all that it stands for. I am happy. But I explained to her that the exec board approached me and asked if I would be on the board and help organize the event. I was flattered that they asked, but I declined.
A little while ago I decided that I was going to declutter my life and declining that position was part of it. I'm not saying that I am going to completely unplug. I'm 99.9% sure that that would be impossible for me. I love to be involved. However, I made a conscious decision to not sign up for more than I could handle. I got to a point last semester where I was constantly running from meeting to meeting to study group to meeting. I didn't have any "me" time. So I decided to slowly back off my volunteering and figure out who I am. Sounds daunting, doesn't it? I can't lie. It really is. I think that I had become so bogged down in organizations, positions, material possessions, etc. that I forgot what I wanted out of life. I am the volunteering, do-gooder (or at least I try to be) and I don't want to change that. When I volunteer or put forth an extra-special effort for something, I want there to be meaning behind it other than it just makes me feel good. I want to discover why I am the way that I am and why I want to volunteer and be involved. None of this is making sense in my mind and it's even more confusing in writing, but I want the things that I do to be a concious decision made by me and not just a routine that I fall into. I want to make a different in people's lives; that is my goal. But, I don't think that I can do that without first making a difference/discovery in my own life.... if that makes sense, which it probably doesn't, but there it is for what it's worth.