Twenty Miles Of Punishment

Lost Coast Backpacking Trip 2021

Reflections are fascinating. And so beautiful.

It's a random Tuesday morning and despite having ignored this blog for years something in my head told me to come back and check in. It's a sort of inner growth check-in because re-reading these posts gives me HUGE perspective on where I've been.

As a brand marketer, solopreneur I've been using a lot of AI to aid in my writing lately - I gotta add that in somewhere because not only has my life shifted in so many ways but so has technology and the world at large. In a BIG way. One that is fundamentally changing my career. I say this just to also say how I am not using AI on this blog whatsoever (you'd be able to tell anyway by dead giveaway words like AMPLIFY, UNLOCK POTENTIAL (AI loves to unlock things. Apparently it's got keys to the whole universe!) TRANSFORMATIONAL (I'm guilty of overusing this word thanks to my naive exhuberance when I first discovered the OpenAI playground. I don't even think I spelled exhuberance right. I don't have keys to spelling.)

Anyway, I sit here and write now. 7am ish in the morning, without ever intending to write but something in me said I need to go back and read. Here's a post I never published from about 4 years ago. I guess I had a similar whisper back then.

. . . . 

My divorce was finalized amidst the pandemic on March 21 of 2020 this year. That day would have been ironically my parent's 57th wedding anniversary had my father still been alive. 

Right now I'm busily cleaning house and sweeping all my shit under the rug until I'm ready to voluntarily pick it up and examine it. But I'm recording some heavy stuff in my dream journal. I have been able to bring some awareness to the unconscious unraveling that is now floating to the surface. It's a huge part of my process. This healing has been a long and arduous journey and I'm being patient with myself and trying to deal with things in their own time. Healing is not linear for me and accepting parts of myself that I have tossed into the darkest corners of my psyche is very painful. I'm also aware that this process is likely to take an entire lifetime.

While many in my external world saw what I affectionately call my "midlife enlightenment" as an act of  defiance, I see this from my internal perspective as an act of acceptance. I am allowing the change to happen. I allow myself to be who I want to be. I only get one stab at this life. Those who knew me ten years ago would say I'm a very different human now. In fact, you can experience this change by reading this blog. Although my writing is still infused with lots of emotion and honesty it's not as frustrated or irreverent as it use to be. It's reflective, thoughtful, and lately a bit sad. But that's growth and I'm being patient with it. We accept, and expect, a child to transform into an adult. Even young adults move on to be mature adults. This is our nature. We are constantly changing and transforming, learning and exploring. It's ok to do a life pivot. I give myself this permission. I firmly believe once we have matured we don't freeze in time. Our souls still seek to evolve. We can either embrace that evolution or we can reject it. I choose evolution.

When I look in the mirror now I not only see the physical changes of a woman about to turn 50 - the wrinkles, the laugh lines, the greying hair, but I feel my newest roots are solid, wide, and meandering to find the most genuine parts of myself. These are the roots that nourish me now. The old roots are still there but they are smaller now and slowly dying back.

I'm embracing this change. It's beautiful and different and with it comes it's own challenges. I'm enjoying the exploration.