Midlife Crisis?

Yesterday I was having an exchange with a friend about my blog the day before. The one where I laid out all my vulnerabilities and fears. The one where I needed and wanted to release my inhibitions that may be keeping me back from being my authentic self. My friend sent me a message to say she was glad my blog yesterday sounded more positive.

And my response to her is that I am starting to feel my mortality. The fact that I am not going to be here forever. And I am questioning and examining whether I am doing what I was sent here to do. Questioning whether I am doing enough. Being enough. Whether I am walking in the right shoes.

And what has created this angst for me is the fact that I will be fifty this year. A decade my mother never reached so maybe  I am putting undue pressure on myself to do more. To be more. To live the life my mother never did.

In addition, I am also reeling from the deaths of people who, to me, had a vibrancy about them. Who seemed to be so positive. So grateful. So full of promise. Yet they are dying. So it makes me worry that for them to die so young, and I guess young is a relative term because teenagers think people my age are ancient, there must be a reason. And I am questioning whether their deaths are to remind me of my mortality. To remind me to live. To be. To remind me I am a human being not God. So I am trying to learn from them. Hear their message. And examine all aspects of who I am.

And in doing so I, have to go to the darkest and most hidden places of myself. To understand what I don’t want as well as what I do. And travelling to those places forces me to question, to search, to doubt. To fear.

My journey is also helping to me understand I am truly moving into the golden age of my life. To the age where wisdom trumps folly. Where the sage in me is meant to emerge more than the jester. Or so I believe. Hoping I am not suppressing the me that it meant to emerge because I am trying too hard to be something or someone I am not.

I may be going through a midlife crisis. I don’t know what a midlife crisis feels like but all I know is I am examining my life and trying to determine if this is the life I am meant to lead. I am questioning and meditating and doing courses and talking to people and letting out my emotions because I don’t want to bottle them up anymore. I don’t want to pretend anymore. I want to be my authentic self and feel confident and secure in knowing I am who I am meant to be.

There is nothing wrong with me for doing this and I hope I am not making others feel afraid or think I am being negative because I am not. And I don’t feel sorry for myself either so you don’t have to worry about that part of me. No it’s the exact opposite actually, I feel like I am on the verge of something. That something I don’t know what yet. But I feel this path I am taking. The path of questioning, doubt and fear is actually helping me to grow.

It is frightening to expose my vulnerabilities and fears because I know there are those who love to exploit them for their own gain but there is nothing I can do to change that. Nothing at all. Except do what feels right to me in the moment. And that’s what I am doing.

So don’t cry for me my friends. And don’t worry. I am on a journey of love and light and sometimes that light creates doubt and confusion in order to make way for the new. It’s just I am sharing my journey for others in case they are on the same path. So they will know they are not alone and I will know I am not alone. So we can help each other to grow. To flourish and to embrace all that is us – darkness and light, ,  being and doing, questioning and answering, fear and love. to embrace the uncertainty because the only certainty in life is the uncertainty particularly when we are growing.
So instead of calling it a midlife crisis maybe I will reframe my experience to call it a midlife awakening. Feels better already. Namaste