I am birthing yet another new version of myself. Evolving into new versions of myself through intentional change. The self I know myself to be wants to shed this shell and crawl somewhere new. She only crawls at the start of things. Don’t worry. Did I get this far in life by being a crawler? Certainly, the answer is a big, fat “No.” It’s all a process, isn’t it, Ladies? The main thing is to get going on it. Even if I don’t exactly know what “it” is. At this point in time, “it” is that itchy feeling that something is clamoring for change. Not necessarily a loud clamoring. Could be more like a tiny tap on a tin drum. That’s okay. The most important thing I can do is not ignore it.
No pushing it away or overpowering it with some other trivial task. (Or a pizza.)
Unlike actual birthing, I have no Midlife Midwife. No one to coach me, monitor my breathing, and all that stuff. At this time of life, we hope things happen incrementally. All at once, leaps of experience have taught us that some things do not always turn out. It’s okay to slowly ease into whatever this phase will result in. Consistency outweighs speed. I believe we’ve all been around long enough to know that nothing is for certain, except change. There is nothing permanent except change. We might as well accept it. Heck, all women will at some point go through “The Change.” We’ve been told about it from our own mothers, sisters, and the like since we were girls. No surprises then, when it happens to us. How do we get through it? We simply do, don’t we? No choice there.
The Earth is not going to stop turning, so we are swinging through a galaxy not of our own creation or control.
But we do control what we do. Maybe that’s my new mantra: “I do control what I do. Today, this week, this year.” That type of thing. My mantra will be my support system, like a comfortable hammock I can lie in, underneath a lovely canopy of shade. Everything doesn’t have to be Earth-shattering and difficult. How great is that? Pretty darn great.
Many Thought Leaders advise that when starting on a new goal, the best thing to do is to tell somebody. Make them hold me accountable. I think this may work for some things and not for others. Do you agree? I mean, announcing I’m going to walk five thousand steps per day this year is a good goal to put out there. But listening to an inner yearning I can’t quite put words to yet? Um, not so much. I think I’ll keep that to myself for now.
I have enough bossy voices in my head, believe me.
When I was a young woman, every future life thought felt like I was standing on a diving board over an empty swimming pool. “I can’t jump now,” I’d think to myself. “It’s not the right time. I don’t know enough about how to do it or what I even should be doing.” Isn’t hindsight a wonderful gift of aging? Cause we know for a fact that it was the right time. Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right. We didn’t know enough, and it didn’t matter. We learned enough by doing. That’s how life works. There’s something to be said for not napping through our twenties. I definitely did not. I think I’m still catching up on that sleep deprivation. But it was what I needed to do at the time.
I kept stumbling forward. (The keyword being forward.)
When I was a young adult, there was literally nothing to go back to in my life. Was I going to relive being three years old? Nope. An acne faced Preteen? Not a chance. See how life does that? I admit in adulthood, I sometimes wanted to go back, but I don’t feel that way anymore. I am not the person I was yesterday. Reminiscing is not the way to go. I want new experiences as often as possible. Perhaps a day here and there of couch surfing, but that gets boring pretty quickly. What am I doing here? I don’t always know, but I surely am not meant to spend my life watching movies and crap television. For me, that’s not really living.
I’m sure you have your big and incremental goals rolling around in your heads.
If there is overwhelm in there, perhaps you can chop those big thoughts into Chiclet-sized tasks. One action to take to start the process forward. A tiny accomplishment is still an accomplishment. Hey, is that another mantra? I’m full of them today. Maybe that’s my daily accomplishment. Ha! (Hey, I make the rules up in here.)
I guess each of us has to be our own midlife midwives. There are worse things we could be forced by life to become. We must be willing to let go of the life we planned. Guess I’ll accept it and do what I always do during new life stages. I roll it around in my brain and make up some sort of a plan. Then, I’ll refine that plan and see how it can actually merge into the life I’ve already built. There’s plenty of room in our lives for such plans of action.
For me, it’s very motivating to come up with a novel idea to execute. Anything from buying a new shade for that old lamp in the living room to vacationing in Costa Rica. As long as it’s a change from the usual, it’s relevant. We don’t need to scream it off our balconies. A small inner smile is sometimes all we need to go on to the next thing. Before we know, we have accomplished what we set out to do. All of those early worries and considerations have completely disappeared from memory.
“Why was I so worried?” we ask as we stand at the finish line.
Yet when we move onto the next notion, we restart the entire dang series of things we just did that made us a little nuts. I admit I have gotten better with age at sloughing off my crazy. It’s simply part of my process, and I accept it now. I trust my process. No need for judgment! When I make up a new recipe for turkey meatloaf, I don’t judge every ingredient I’m throwing into the mix.
I have a jar of pimentos taking up space in my refrigerator, so I throw them in. Who cares? I’m not throwing out food that is staring at me from the back shelf. “Please use me up instead of throwing me away when the mold comes,” it seems to beg me. If there’s one life lesson here, even though we’ve already established there are two so far, perhaps the third one is, “Listen to the pimentos.” Or something like that. They can’t all be classical gems.
Sometimes a bad motto is better than no motto at all.
Wait a minute. Is that another motto? Who needs a midlife midwife when you’ve got me, Mother of Midlife Mottos, in your corner. Get to it, ladies. Whatever “It” is. You are welcome. I mean it. Drop in whenever you like. It’s a very large hammock, and there’s some cold turkey meatloaf in the fridge! Do I know how to party, or what?
We all go through major life transitions when relationships end… Through the Leftat50.com website, I will share my thoughts as I walk the path of “New-Self” discovery. It doesn’t matter which side of 50 you are on. The real question is, ‘Are you ready to live life? To forge a Path of Your Own Making (For a change!)?’ Then stop dwelling over the What-Might-Have-Beens and join me. Share your thoughts here, comment on mine, and let’s do this together! And check out my book, “Restarting Your Life When You Are. No Longer A Wife,” I wrote it just for you!