Sometimes I get this voice that circles around my head, telling me that I should have a certain amount of money in the bank or that I should have more than one car and a house. Or that I should have reached a certain pinnacle of career success with friends fawning all over me and telling me how amazing I am.
That’s what I kept telling myself over and over for most of my life, sometimes consciously, sometimes not.
I’d look at people and wonder why I didn’t have their experiences, freedom, success, family, and on and on. Instagram, Facebook, and even LinkedIn can really stir up the ‘grass is always greener’ feelings.
I still sometimes look at the large houses here in Santa Fe and wish I had more space. I look at people on LinkedIn who were just starting out who are now running successful businesses they founded or are having massive career success, and here I am, writing books not many people read and wondering where I belong.
So I can get all down and depressed, but I recently realized a truth that I think is important for all of us.
No matter where you are in life, no matter what’s happened, you haven’t failed. And you haven’t missed out.
Instead, you were interrupted.
You might have experienced loss, illness, grief, burnout, or had years of just trying to survive. Personally, I’ve experienced all of the above.
My midlife interruption came in full force when a long career in the nonprofit world fell apart. I spent twenty-five years successfully working in healthy food and food sustainability, and it wasn’t just a job. It was my identity and my sense of purpose. When it collapsed, I wasn’t just losing a job. It destroyed who I thought I was and how I saw myself.
I spent years humiliated, angry, and comparing my insides to everyone else’s outsides, as most of us are taught to do in one way or another. And as an aside, why in the world do we ever feel shame over something we didn’t do or have control over?”
What I didn’t understand at the time was that losing everything forced me out of the life I was performing and not really living. I had created a life that other people wanted for me, not what I wanted, and the loss pulled the rug out from under me and left me dangling with nowhere to land.
Trust me, I was lost for a long time, and I struggled. There’s a sense of security in a steady paycheck and a routine you’re familiar with. But there can also be stagnation and boredom, at least there was for me.
Had I not been thrown out of my life head first, I’d probably still be doing what I’d done for twenty-five years, and I’d be miserable.
If you’re heading up for a big birthday, especially sixty, don’t take your transition to the new decade lightly. Since I’ve started sharing my story with others, many people have said that as they hit their fifties or sixties, reality hit them in the face, and they made huge changes.
Time is becoming more precious, and each of us has to decide what we want for the rest of our lives. I had wanted to write fiction since I was fifteen years old. I tried in the nineties but was so demoralized over rejections that I stopped trying, and I fell into a bearable and rather routine life.
But something was always at the back of my mind, telling me I didn’t belong and that I wasn’t on the planet just to survive.
So at fifty-nine, with my life in tatters, I finally got the message. I was in Santa Fe, didn’t know anyone, Covid still had most people locked indoors, and I crumpled to the floor. When I was able to get up and look around, I realized it was now or never.
I could spend the rest of my life unhappy and forcing myself into someone else’s version of me, or I could take a huge leap and do what I wanted to do. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I understood I would never be fulfilled until I pursued what I was meant to do.
So in 2021, I jumped into writing and publishing fiction full time. Last month I released my fourth book, and now that I’m coming out the other side of my life transition, I’m realizing I’ve learned some valuable lessons.
One of the most important ones for me is that rebuilding takes time, sometimes more than we’d like. I needed time to think, plan, create, and, most importantly, to do nothing. I needed the space to stare at the clouds and watch birds on the patio. I needed to give my whole system a rest.
Some days I still have to remind myself that there is no certain point I’m supposed to be at by a certain age.
I’m not behind. I was interrupted.
And now I’m back and writing the rest of my life the way I want my story to be told.
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Love this, and am loving your 4th book, too!
Have been thinking so much about how the past leads to everything now, but how the trick is to simply let go of that (not to deny it, but to step away really) so that one can take all those lessons, and all those injuries, and even the brief triumphs to inform and elevate where we are now. I once knew a woman who talked about the necessity of spiraling up in life, rather than down and rather than out.
Just food for thought.