Crisis or Clarity?

Everyone knows that middle life brings change.  Change of relationships, children, work, health, fuck, pretty much everything!  For many years, we have allowed this mid life change to be called a crisis.  But is it really?  Perhaps crisis is attendant to what happens when you see that you only have so much time left, and get a great deal of clarity about how you want to spend that precious time.

I think it all depends on perspective.  I mean, sometimes looking at my life, I would agree, CRISIS CENTRAL.  But most of the time, that “crisis” was just the universe moving me from one thing I wasn’t ready to let go of to something better, but was slow in coming and was wrapped in fear and anxiety.  I would love to tell you that my life has been this lovely unfolding of sequential changes.  And I suppose, that would be accurate.  However, it has also looked like a dumpster fire, followed by a shit show, followed by a full and complete breakdown.  I think regardless of the way the change has showed up and how willing and able I am to accept that change, I have been evolving into a life that is filled with more clarity and less crisis.

I mean, clarity or crisis is really more descriptive of how we handle the change that comes.  I always have the option to allow it entrance and passage, or I can stand sentinel at the door and ward it off with guns drawn...that choice is always mine.  Always a choice.

I kind of like the reframe here.  Mid life is about gaining clarity and with some of that clarity, there are going to be crises.  The fact that sometimes the change comes with a sudden, sweeping craziness, doesn’t mean that clarity is also not part of the process.  And for me, I know that the crisis is in direct proportion to my level of acceptance and willingness to face the change that comes, whether I want it to or not; the more I resist, the more clarity looks like crisis.

And isn’t middle life an appropriate time to gain increased clarity, with and without the crisis?  I mean, if not now, when we are old enough to know better and still young enough to embrace the change?  And sometimes, don’t we just need a good old fashioned crisis to shake us into a new way of being?  I mean, if nothing changes, nothing fucking changes.

Perhaps that is crisis’ job, to bring clarity. Sometimes, perhaps, we are just THAT stubborn that it takes a full blown crisis to create a crack in our armor to bring any kind of clarity at all...

I prefer the clarity that comes without the crisis but then again, I seem to only grow spiritually with a rather large subtraction from my life.  I do not tend to learn much of anything when things are added, but fucking take something I value away from me, oh, you have my attention now!  And I think, at least for me, that is crisis’ role in my life, to bring clarity when I have shored up my defenses and walled myself into something that “feels” comfortable, but actually it isn’t comfortable at all, it is just familiar.  And we all know that I am a master at picking the familiar hell over the uncertain heaven.  

Again, still...