Ouch..... It hurts..... You're calling out some buried stuffffffff! But that buried stuff wants to see the light of day. You make me think! Good post! Appreciate your style! Always the humor to make the medicine go down!
The question "What if?" is a dangerous one because we are not empowered to change the past. It leaves us feeling diminished and sad. Mourn what might have been if it is needed to provide healing. To move forward in life, a better question, one that lives in possibility, is "What now?" Who we are today is different than any version of who we have been. Perhaps reflecting on what this version of you needs to feel happy and fulfilled, unattached to previous identities and external standards (which we cannot control) opens the door to new adventures.
Maureen, you wrote this on my birthday. I was 70 in 2023, and right in the middle of a series of some seven major surgeries, twelve in five years, to get my aging ass back out into the world of adventure travel, which I had begun at sixty.
So there are a few things here. There is no death of possibility, not really. What does die is our belief in a possibility, and what also gets to die is our belief that the ONLY way we get to do X is this way. Your essay really brought up some important points- at various points in my life I've tried to shoehorn my ass into work for survival, and the universe said NO STUPID. You're better than that. I've tried to force myself to like who and what I was at any given time, with provisos, and the universe said NO STUPID, you're better than that, you get to love who you are at any given time. No provisos.
Alicia R brings up some wonderful questions. What happens if we can decouple from our identities? Each one has a role, and often the role is long used up before we've released it. If you'd asked me at 53 what I'd be doing at sixty, I most assuredly would not have said, badass adventure travel. But that's what happened.
I am often unhappy and unfulfilled. That's the nature of our humanness, to be perpetually dissatisfied. Perhaps it's also part of the journey to challenge that dissatisfaction and ask wholly different questions. We are moving through seasons all the time, and each one has its highlights. I emphatically disagree with some of what you said about doors closing forever; I think that in some cases ( to be fair to you and everyone else, not all things are available to us forever, that's ludicrous) we can recreate ourselves in ways we thought utterly impossible. Sometimes if we come at these questions from an oblique angle we get very different answers, and doors swing wide open, and the voice in our hearts says,
"Christ. I thought you'd never ask. Come on in."
When we are fifty, we believe that 70+ is ANCIENT. I am 71. For me 91 is ANCIENT. It's not the age per se, it's the fertile ground in our minds which we keep churning for more options. We simply do not ever know what we can do, and who we might become. That door is always open. For what it's worth. Great piece.
I love that Julia “the universe saying “ No Stupid” your not going back to that 😂🙏🏻💕
And, that opening quote is fantastic, by Ellen Debenport
Ouch..... It hurts..... You're calling out some buried stuffffffff! But that buried stuff wants to see the light of day. You make me think! Good post! Appreciate your style! Always the humor to make the medicine go down!
The question "What if?" is a dangerous one because we are not empowered to change the past. It leaves us feeling diminished and sad. Mourn what might have been if it is needed to provide healing. To move forward in life, a better question, one that lives in possibility, is "What now?" Who we are today is different than any version of who we have been. Perhaps reflecting on what this version of you needs to feel happy and fulfilled, unattached to previous identities and external standards (which we cannot control) opens the door to new adventures.
Maureen, you wrote this on my birthday. I was 70 in 2023, and right in the middle of a series of some seven major surgeries, twelve in five years, to get my aging ass back out into the world of adventure travel, which I had begun at sixty.
So there are a few things here. There is no death of possibility, not really. What does die is our belief in a possibility, and what also gets to die is our belief that the ONLY way we get to do X is this way. Your essay really brought up some important points- at various points in my life I've tried to shoehorn my ass into work for survival, and the universe said NO STUPID. You're better than that. I've tried to force myself to like who and what I was at any given time, with provisos, and the universe said NO STUPID, you're better than that, you get to love who you are at any given time. No provisos.
Alicia R brings up some wonderful questions. What happens if we can decouple from our identities? Each one has a role, and often the role is long used up before we've released it. If you'd asked me at 53 what I'd be doing at sixty, I most assuredly would not have said, badass adventure travel. But that's what happened.
I am often unhappy and unfulfilled. That's the nature of our humanness, to be perpetually dissatisfied. Perhaps it's also part of the journey to challenge that dissatisfaction and ask wholly different questions. We are moving through seasons all the time, and each one has its highlights. I emphatically disagree with some of what you said about doors closing forever; I think that in some cases ( to be fair to you and everyone else, not all things are available to us forever, that's ludicrous) we can recreate ourselves in ways we thought utterly impossible. Sometimes if we come at these questions from an oblique angle we get very different answers, and doors swing wide open, and the voice in our hearts says,
"Christ. I thought you'd never ask. Come on in."
When we are fifty, we believe that 70+ is ANCIENT. I am 71. For me 91 is ANCIENT. It's not the age per se, it's the fertile ground in our minds which we keep churning for more options. We simply do not ever know what we can do, and who we might become. That door is always open. For what it's worth. Great piece.