Reflections from a midlife journey
Faith and fear in transition
I recently returned to my home state of California. This time, though, it felt different. It didn’t feel like my present. Instead, it felt decidedly like my past. What surprised me was how OK I felt about this. The shift was a welcome feeling, like I had finally let go of some part of my past that was keeping me stuck.
Deserving a life I love
Here’s what I know to be true based on my life’s journey and experience:
You matter. You are worthy of the life you want. You deserve a life you love.
What I forgot
By all appearances, I had created a great life. As it turned out, though, it wasn’t a life I loved; a life that reflected me. I had created a life based on someone else’s vision. Because regardless of the choices I made—or didn’t make—along the way, I had forgotten one thing…
Where I belong
Time and time again I have searched for where I belong, trying to find my place. At first blush it sounds kind of sad, like I have never found my place or where I belonged. That’s not true. Many times in my life I have found my place and been exactly where I belonged. The trouble always came when I forgot where that place is—always within me—and started relying on and identifying my belonging as something outside myself.
Evolution of a vision
One of my desires for this year was to find something creative and fun. Although writing is my go-to creative outlet, it’s often related to my work or a means of self-discovery. I wanted to engage in something just for me that didn’t have an agenda and that I wouldn’t care whether it was any good.
I choose me
Throughout my life I had been pressured to be different than how I was. In one way or another, who I was wasn’t good enough, didn’t measure up, or didn’t fit in. For a long time I resisted, which caused no end of frustration to those who thought I should be different. I fought the good fight for decades but over time, after giving in a little here and giving up a littler there, my battle lines had been severely compromised. I was exhausted from the fight and I gave in.
Experience desired
I cannot count the times over the years that I have unconsciously tried to control someone else’s experience, always with the best of intentions and always at the expense of my own experience. Making sure things were “just so” for others meant I put my own experience on the back burner. Worse, that meant others didn’t get to experience me—the authentic me—because I was too busy tending to their experience.
A cry for love
I went into last month feeling heavy and burdened. After taking on a lot of new things over the summer, I felt like I just wanted a month off. I was feeling squeezed, constrained, and lifeless. Some things that started from a place of joy no longer felt that way. I couldn’t remember why I was doing them; only that I should. I began looking around desperately for anything that would make it all—make me—feel better.
Inch by inch
I went into October feeling antsy, dissatisfied, and easily frustrated—a bit uncomfortable in my own skin. I know these feelings. When they surface is usually when I start thinking I need to get out of town. I need a change of scenery. My desire really isn’t to escape my physical surroundings but to escape my internal expansion.
Growing pains
Preferences. We all have them. And those preferences, from the seemingly insignificant and mundane to the profound, shape our identities and how we see ourselves. As we change, our preferences change. But holding onto old preferences stifles our growth.