Age becomes an elusive topic of conversation for some as we get older. What I have been finding, though, is that I am absolutely in love with mine. I have experience, scars, and a plethora of knowledge packed into this little thing that we call baggage that we carry with us. Usually, in this context, baggage is considered a negative term, a burden. Maybe we flip the narrative.
I have said before that the first half of my life was lived on autopilot. That I was living within the need to survive. I had babies young and found myself responsible for others. That’s a heavy weight to carry, knowing that little humans depend on you for their life, comfort and security.
Now that I am getting to the second half of my life, the focus seems to be on unlearning those autopilot behaviours. If you don’t begin to question the motivation behind why you are doing things, are you really in your mid-life “crisis”? I am not fond of that term, by the way, because although, at times, it absolutely feels like my mind is in a state of crisis, the overall feeling is one of awakening. My eyes are being opened to what is going on around me, and I am choosing, consciously, what I want to participate in. The thing is, a crisis is what put me in this headspace. I am not sure that I would have wound up this deep in it entirely on my own.
That awakening brought about a realization that was quite stunning. I like myself, who I am. I am certain that there are plenty of people who criticize or judge the choices I have made or what I have done, but those people are not me. It’s not a statement that my opinion of myself is the only one that matters, because that is also not true. There are people whom I value, and whose opinions I also value. It is more of an acknowledgment that no one walks the same path and, therefore, not a single other person would have the same perspective as I.
Liking who you are means letting go of holding onto guilt or shame. It means embracing your intuition, letting that voice grow inside you again. It means not caring about following the trend of middle parts, high socks, or trying to understand 6-7. It means allowing others to cringe over the length of your existence, without a defence.
Now, those little humans are about as big as I am, if not bigger. They call me old, and so be it. Because I am going to enjoy being old in all the ways that I didn’t enjoy being young, because I was too busy caring.
Until tomorrow 🖤
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