Coming into Your Own...

It has taken me a long fucking time. 

56 years, to be exact.

I mean, it is all a process.

I know that every single second before this one, I needed to grow, to change, to evolve, to heal.

Every. Single. One.

Whether or not I liked it.

Whether or not it felt good.

Whether or not I felt like it might end me.

I, today, have a deep and personal appreciation for every single moment I have lived, survived, experienced, endured, loved and grown through.

But I do feel pretty complete as a person today.

Finally.

This is not to say that I will not further evolve. 

I hope so. 

I plan to.

But through so many varied twists and turns, false starts and agonies, and inconveniences, and losses, I arrive here at this place that is totally, 100% mine. 

M

I

N

E

And, I have to admit, it feels pretty fucking amazing.

And I don’t say this to brag or boast, but to encourage.  I mean, if I can get to a place where I do not want to be anyone else, where I have made peace with my greater and larger defects, and have come to a place of peaceful abiding that is full of self acceptance, healing, grace and love, I mean, can’t you?

Maybe you are already there. Congratulations!

Maybe you feel mired in your journey, unsure of what awaits you on the distant shore of you.

Maybe you feel lost in the ocean of self that swirls and threatens all round you.

Maybe you are so deeply alone and isolated, in fear and loathing, that you are 30 seconds away from giving up.

I have been in all those places. 

And I have survived them all. 

And I know that life never guarantees that it won’t kick you back to a place you thought you were done with, a version of you who recalls you to a place and time that you thought you outgrew.  But I also know that healing transforms you into someone else.  And that new person can be recalled but never back to the exact place and time.  So there is no way to completely repeat the past, there is always an opportunity to be different.

Change is permanent. 

Even though life is not.

Sometimes I feel so me that I feel like I am very close to coming to an end.  Like this level of self acceptance and love has to be the harbinger of an imminent demise.  But then I think, what if all that soul crushing and searching for the first 50 years has brought me to this place of peace for the next 50?  (I know, I know, I likely will not live to 100, and to that I say, but what if I do??)

Imagine that the time already spent living was the seed, the fruition of growth and change leading you to place of self victory or defeat. Imagine landing here in middle life feeling victorious about the path, the challenges, and the outcome.  How different would the years that come next to be experienced as the wholest, most authentic version of yourself?

I plan to find out.

I am finding out.

For a long time we are becoming, then we altering, reshaping, honing, but then, perhaps, we actually come into our own.  And then we experience life and living and even loving from the purest, most evolved iteration of our soul.

Of course we will change.  We will age. Our bodies and minds will decay, that is life and living.  But imagine experiencing that as the whole you.  The complete you.  The healed you.

That is what now feels like.  I get to live this life, my life, as me.  Not who you think I should be.  Not who I perhaps thought I would be.  Not the gnarled version of my traumas, disappointments, heartbreaks and losses.  But the healed and healing version of me who now evolves in place. Time being the only force moving us onto the next iteration.

I guess I will have to let you know...

Again, still...