I think most people look forward to the point in their lives when they are settled, when life is fairly set, when they can be in their comfortable groove and know what to expect from the day to day. They have their home, their job, their family, their routine - everything is in its place, and they can relax and move through the days and weeks without much thought or effort. Its not that we, as humans, want our lives to be ordinary, per se. But it is comforting to know what is coming, to feel we have a handle on the future.
But here's the thing. At 52, I have finally learned that moment will never really come. Just when you think your life is set, something will come along and upset the apple cart. And although it can be hard at the time, in retrospect, it is often those very moments of change that make life most interesting and worthwhile.
I was thinking this morning about my life one year ago, and how unexpectedly things have changed in the last 12 months. I thought I knew what I was doing, I thought my path was fairly stable, and suddenly, it all went upside down on me. Twelve short months ago, I didn't foresee any of the adventures I had coming. It's probably just as well I didn't have access to a crystal ball. Although there have been some very difficult moments, it has been an adventure that has stretched and changed me, forced me to grow in ways I didn't expect, and caused me to consider my life in ways I never have before.
It has been a good year, all in all.
There are regrets, of course. I was rather forcefully told, by the one person in my life who will never pull any punches with me when she thinks I am going down the wrong path, that I need to learn to balance better, not only for my own sanity, but for everyone else in my life, as well. She was right.
I am not used to dividing my time amongst competing interests, and I haven't learned to do it very well yet. It is a process, and I hope that I am starting to figure it out. But it will take time, as everything does, and in the meantime, everyone suffers.
I regret not writing my blog posts more faithfully. That has been part of the balance I have lost, and which I will work hard to restore. It is not for lack of material, but lack of time, and I am trying to make that time as part of the restored balance in my life.
I miss my friends in Kansas City, without whom I would not be where I am today. They are my chosen family, and they are special to me in ways that need no explanation.
I miss the easy availability of Target and WalMart and Price Chopper. I didn't appreciate what I had until I didn't have it any more!
I miss my doctor and my dentist and especially my hair stylist, Diana, who has been through it all with me and never gave up her encouraging attitude. I wish I could have brought them all with me to my new life, because they cannot be replaced.
But in the end, the changes I have wrought in my life in the past 12 months have caused me to renew my spirit, change my attitude, shaken me out of complacency and into a whole new place in my life. I have expanded everything I thought my life was about into new and more exciting boundaries, and it has been good for me.
In going back to my own Walton's Mountain, I have found myself again. Sometimes you have to go backwards to move ahead, and that has been true for me in the last twelve months. As I have given up what I thought was so important, I have been freed to forge ahead and find something new and better. The material goods I clung to, remnants of a life already gone, turned out to mean little, and are not missed. As I gave away most of what I spent my life accumulating, I discovered the memories are the only thing that I really want to hold onto, and they are free and take up no space at all, either in my home or in my life. As I moved forward in new directions, leaving the past behind got easier and easier.
It hasn't been an even exchange, of course.
I left behind friends that cannot be replaced, but I have regained some friendships that I had truly and deeply missed.
I left behind a beautiful house that I spent 17 years making my home, but I found a little cottage that reflects who I am now in a way that felt like home from the first moment I walked in the door.
In exchange for less time for myself, I have the opportunity to see my mother any time I want. It is a priceless gift that I value far more for having been away.
I have exchanged working from home, with the advantages it brings, with working in an office, and the blessings that gives me.
There are many moments in life when you face a Y in the road, and have to make a choice. It is easy to fantasize how things would have gone if only you had made another choice at the crucial moments of change in your life, but you can never know what would have happened had you taken the other fork. The past year has been a long and, at times, difficult path. I am happy to say, looking back at the past 12 months, I wouldn't change a thing.
