Finish this sentence:
I am ________________________.
From this 37 year old, mother of 3, teacher, coach, consultant, daughter, sister, granddaughter, partner, and friend, the end to that sentence has looked so wildly different over the course of 37 years. And then it has, on more occasions than I would like to admit, been followed by the internal chatterbox of all the things I am not. However, at 37, just like at 25, I have experienced an epiphany.
At 25, the epiphany was that making a decision meant choosing a direction. And that, for 25 years, I had let "outsiders" (individuals or society) tell me what decisions were "good," "worthy," "responsible," and "righteous." That is not to say that I sought to abandon all mentoring guidance or to abandon my moral compass, but it did awaken me to the immense thoughts that (1) success should be a personal measure (2) I have free will (3) I am empowered by free will to define MY success (4) I can abandon those who judge and journey with those who listen. At 25, this translated less eloquently into, "I am an adult, damn it and should do what makes me happy around people that make me happy."
At 37, my epiphany is JOURNEY. It is the further development of my discovery through a search to find what fuels me, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. In all transparency, I spend much less time in the world of physical fueling or even thinking about it than the other three realms, but it does not go without notice when I recognize that my body doesn't rebound quite the same as it did at 25. And here we arrive at #lifeundecided.
I am many things and in each of those things, I have felt successful (less the nagging chatterbox that attempts to distort my positive), but have learned that success is not such a finite term. Now I am on a journey of empowering my infinite curiosity and owning such as my success. This success is awkward (see making friends in adulthood #laterblog), unplanned (see walking in faith #laterblog), raw (see being less needed #laterblog), and present (see learning people #laterblog).
And if you find yourself on a similar journey, by all means take my hand (in the less literal sense of a comment on a blog post unless we are in proximity to each other, then by all means literally feel welcome to take my hand). This is #lifeundecided.
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