Crisis might be too strong a word for what I am describing. This is not a dangerous thing. It isn't a calamity. It doesn't involve catastrophic events that have me taxed beyond my abilities to cope. It isn't a loud thing. And it isn't a totally obvious thing either. It is more of a quiet thing. Quiet but persistent. More of a whisper in my ear when I wake in the morning, or as I go about my day, or at 3:00 am when I can't sleep and the stories of my life are swirling in my mind with a vengeance. It is quiet but it is there, and I can't help but hear it.
It tells me things I always knew but never acted on. It jolts me, pulling me out of the humdrum and the routines and the bills and the automatic ways I do things in this life. It tells me a bunch of things that aren't new at all: life is short, time is precious, it all goes so fast. It asks me questions like, "What are you waiting for?" and "Who are you, apart from all of the things you have to do to live in the world every day?" The most pressing questions these days are also the most frequent: What is it that you love to do? What is that thing, or those things that transport you out of the ordinary, and into a realm that can only be defined as special? What is it that makes you lose your sense of time and space, that pulls you totally out of the moment but yet keeps you in it all at once? What is that thing that makes you feel connected to the deepest, happiest, most authentic part of yourself?
These questions have surfaced in my life often, from a young age, so I am pretty familiar with them. I've always been a person who asks big questions. What I am not familiar with though is the immediacy, the sense that I must act NOW... or else! What I am not familiar with is these questions no longer having an airy, theoretical slant to them, an intellectual pondering, something I could think about but keep safely at a distance. No, these questions have pulled me firmly to the ground and are keeping me there. They are loaded with feelings, hopes and dreams. These questions can't be just thought about or ignored anymore. My 52 year old self won't allow it.
Although my 50-plus status has contributed to the state in which I now find myself, it involves more than just aging for me. I know deep down that one of the main reasons I am now thinking more regularly about how I want to spend the rest of my life is that I removed the wine from it. My lounge visits and tipsy lunches with friends had become like one of my hobbies really. It was something to do to fill the time between work, chores and parenting, and to take the stress off of work, chores and parenting. It was a hobby I liked, but it did take up a lot of time, and sometimes too much time was spent recovering from said hobby. It was also a hobby that took over other hobbies and interests... the other things I used to do just faded into the background.
But lately, these other things have been reappearing into my life, one by one. I am rediscovering my love of writing, and am actually not just thinking about writing but am actually doing it. I took the plunge yesterday and treated myself to a beautiful guitar, one with a smaller body than the guitar I've had for the past 25 years, and playing it last night for 3 hours was heavenly. I am thinking about possibly singing/performing again. Basically, I am starting to remember what it is I love to do, what makes me tick, what makes me connected to who I am, deep down.
I've decided that it is okay to feel this sense of urgency and that it is okay to have the pressing questions come and visit me regularly. It is only in listening and accepting the questions that I will know what it is I need to do next, the next place to put my feet, or what direction to place them. I know now at a feeling level (not just a thinking level) that life is indeed way too short to waste it doing things that do not bring me joy, and that do not reflect my truest self. It really is. Everything that has been said about the passage of time being much too fast is completely true. There is nothing partially true about it. In the end, we owe it to ourselves to do what we love.
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