DouceLifeAt50.com

“What can I do to always remember who I really am?”  Juan Ramon Jimenez

Figuring out who you truly are can take decades.

Each decade seems to coincide with a different tier of my life. In my late teens I was very focused on moving to the US to learn English, before I had heard of the Law of Attraction I seemed to be using it. I told everybody who asked me what I was going to do after I was done with my school that I was going to move to the US and learn English. I heard a lot of advice that I ignored because most of it was about not following my dream. It seems a lot of people had already decided that I could not make plans 5 years ahead, that I’d meet somebody and get married then have kids and forget all about it, I inwardly rolled my eyes, what did they know about me. Marriage and kids would come after I learned English. My opportunity came in my 21st year, I was hired as a nanny to take care of a young boy. I enjoyed learning English. I got married in my mid twenties. We worked, had fun and waited to have children until my third decade came along. I kept working and supporting my husband goal to become a pilot. I worked until I was in my mid-thirties then I stayed home and became a mom/housewife when we had our second child.

My late forties brought angst, or what I call my “self-crisis”. I could not figure out what was making me so unhappy, I loved my children and the life I had with my husband but somehow I felt dissatisfied with my life. We were finally out of the lean years and able to enjoy the fruit of our labors. Looking back I realize that I had put so much energy doing everything for my family that I had left one important person out, myself. I put myself last for everything, I thought that by putting everybody else’s needs ahead of mine I was being a good wife and mother, that was showing how much I love them. It only reinforced the feeling of aloneness. I felt forgotten and unloved. I didn’t realize how much I had withdrawn from myself, I felt invisible. I spent more time living through books then looking for what I wanted to do or be.  I was home alone more and more as my husband’s schedule didn’t allow him to be home as much, the girls grew, one graduated from high school, I became more independent. Having more time I started working again a few hours each week. My husband and I became more withdrawn from each other. I felt happy with my girls but unhappy in my marriage, so was he. I started thinking I needed to start planning about moving on with my life once my second daughter was out of high school, it would be in two years. I had no idea that a great shift was taking place in my life. That a storm was brewing that would break apart our family and change everything including myself. This storm took the form of an affair which did not surprise me but the consequence of this affair was a pregnancy which really upset me. I felt humiliated, truly rejected, hurt for the hurt that it would cause my daughters, resentful towards myself for putting up with my married life for so long. What I didn’t expect was that during this turmoil I would find myself, that my family, my friends and my coworkers would be so supportive. I kept a journal which help with all my feelings, I found books at the library who carried me through all my cycles of feelings. Those cycles repeated themselves many times until finally I am at peace with myself.

It took me two years to accept and forgive myself, to say: I am who I am! After all my decisions brought me to this point. I have no more regrets, if I had not met him I would not have my two wonderful daughters. You don’t know how strong you are until a great storms comes and destroys what you think you know. I look forward to each day to see what it will bring me. I am grateful for this powerful lesson, without it I would not be as happy as I feel now, without it I would not have found myself.

My daughters have a good relationship with their father, I am thankful for that. Our marriage is over, we will get around to getting a divorce when we are ready. In the meantime we are still connected through our children, that will never change. The past cannot be erased, I am using it as a springboard. I am looking to the future, no matter what happens I am ready for it.

“How are you tending to the emerging story of your life?” Carol Hegedus

From: Between the Dark and the Daylight, Embracing the Contradiction of Life

  By Joan Chittister

Chapter 19:  The Liberation of Loss

…..”The fact is that when we lose a piece of ourselves – a marriage,… we lose a much larger part of our identity then we ever realized was possible.  Not to be Mrs.,, not the be the “One who” is important is a mighty loss. Then the question screams into the night: Who am I now? Is this all there is?

….And yet, there is a resurrection that comes with loss.  People can no longer see in us the person they saw before, true.  But that is one of the gifts of loss. Loss frees us to begin again, to be seen differently, to tap into something inside ourselves that even we were never really sure was there.  But, whether we knew it or not, did badly want…..

…”At the end of the day, though, one thing has become painfully, positively clear: Loss is not loss.  It is simply the invitation to find the more of ourselves that is waiting to become the rest of ourselves….”