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Saturday, May 7, 2011

And then there is a shift, to the afternoon of life...

There is an amazing little key on my key board that is labled SHIFT~it changes the letters and makes them capital, changes numbers into symbols. There is a key in our life too, it is a quantum moment that shifts our life to change us in capital or symbolic way. I love that I have come to understand that these moments are so I get the lesson, so I can shift to the next thing.



There are many moments in life that I can remember thinking I knew what was going on, where I was going and when I would probably arrive. But they don't really register loudly on the long term memory. Because almost as quickly as one decides they are in the KNOW, life can make a shift that changes everything we think we know.




Our childhood can be called the morning of life, we are in a bit of a fog and also have great clarity all at the same time. We are often at ease with being who we are, because we have not lived long enough to gather up all the doubts and insecurites that happen to us as we begin to hear others and believe what they tell us. This can be both a glorious and precarious time of our lives, depending on our circle of influence and our desire to be who we are meant to be, even before we truely understand we are here to be anyone other than the fun finding, dirt gathering, bug exploring, child living in the moement. Then there is a shift, we become aware of others, what they think of us, and when we disappoint them. This shift is to the next phase.



As we begin to understand about school, competitiveness and attraction to those who make our hearts flutter life becomes a bit more warm, sticky and complicated in the mid-morning of our lives. This seemingly beautiful time of our day/life is a bit deceptive because we think we are understanding everything--when in fact we are almost as clueless as ever. And then there is a shift a momentum motivated movement that directs us to feel more about things, people and places. We find love or something like it, we find passions for things that bring us excitement, we find places where we feel grown-up and safe.


Adolescence through to the Semi-grown~up--lunch time! We are hungry for things and finding those foods that just make us happy and fill us up. And again with all the mis-guided knowledge we head in directions believing that the busy~ness, gathering and possessing will bring us happiness and lifelong contentment. We often committ ourselves to careers, life partners, or even in religions or political dogmas. We think that concreting our lives with these decisions will be the staple of our adult lives. Often we are not seeking the right answers, we are headed toward answers and activities that we BELIEVE are supposed to make us happy, we are still too green to even understand what happiness is.




The next phase is comparable to nap-time. We slip into a routine and life that we think we are supposed to be living, but most of us in reality are asleep. We are doing the daily actions that we think we are destined to do. But we are sleeping, or at least sleep walking through our day to day. We are tired, overworked, and often finding ourselves to be too tired to be happy, too distracted to be passionate and too discontent to be at peace. This loss of focus often leads us to shift to the next thing, a decision to become parents or change our career.



As we take on the rearing of the next generation or participating in that function at some level whether we have kids or assist others kids, this is our dinner time. We are starving for all kinds of things and feelings of missing our youth and the passions of our younger life. We find discontentment, depression and management of those emotions with drugs, addictions or risky behaviors. We have come to understand that all those things that should have MADE us happy are just busy work, times when we are distracting our desires with other things. This shift can be both rewarding and misguided, we have spent much time thinking we new where we were headed onliy to find this shift leaves us feeling a bit lost.



This next change is the emptying of our nest, whether it is a nest of kids, work or friends-relationships that just haven't worked to get us to contentment . Those wonderful little or big people who have brought us so much joy, instigated so many lessons and challenged our every belieif gifted to us by our own parents now find their way out and about in the world we tried so hard to prepare for or prevent them from finding. This shift take us to the afternoon of life.


This shift is often labled the mid-life crisis, even though it can come before the middle crease or after, it is lead by the shift in lessoning responsibility. We find that we are becoming a bit less structured, because we find that whether we played by the rules or just skirted around them, we all pretty much end up in the same spot. Why were we here? What did it all mean? Did I enjoy my days? What should I do with this afternoon of humaness?


All great questions spurred on by the shifts, and as life seems to move into hyperspeed, we become more calm or crazy depending on the decisions we have made. Have we decided to accept this phase of our lives? Is the place we find ourselves in rewarding and worth the costs we have paid?


As we begin to see the next and final shift of our lives we can be sure that we will spend some time asking the what ifs---if we were not savvy enough to catch on to the shifts that pushed us through our day. I am nearing that evening shift. I see others who are content with their journey and others similar to me who are just learning many things that I was slow to catch on to as well. There is no guideline, measureing stick or even score...we come to the end of the day or our evening in as many different ways as there are numbers to arrive. We only need to be sure of one thing, that if we are still looking for those answers, we must be prepared to never know or get the answer we have shifted ourselves to find. We most surely drove this life with each decision and through each shift, and whether we come to the darkness in happiness or with regrets we all get there just the same. And as we make that final shift and the answers are revealed and lessons become clear we will know the outcome of our day, and reap the rewards of all that we sowed, a smile or a sigh, a giggle or a tear, will all come from the shifts that we made.


I no longer live in fear of any of those things that have shifted. I have worked to understand those changes, accept my responsibility in each, and to live with only hope of all things are as they are meant to be. I don't think I believe in destiny exactly, but I am happy to have arrived in this near afternoon of my life. I am rarely sad, but still sometimes feel as if there are parts of my story I do not have yet. I have hopes and dreams that are yet to be realized, but have been blessed with other abundance in case those shifts do not come. I accept where I am, but hope for more.


I love each and everyone of the shifts, because they have brought me closer to me. I have learned to let go, of hopes and dreams especially when they weren't really mine, but what others had decided for me. I learned to hang on to the principles that mean the most, honesty, charity, love and the other goods ones I cling to. I have grown to believe in my ability to decide for myself at each shift whether it is right or wrong. I have matured and let go of those things that others told me I should believe in...I have released those who only bring harm and damage in my life and allowed them to shift to their next thing sending them along with my peace and love. I hold no grudges, claim no great kowledge and seperate from any situation that doesnt feel true.


I do all these things with the understanding of the shift yet to come, and I am at peace whenever it may choose to arrive. I know that I am ok, no matter what race I win, or challenge I fail...the lessons are completed and there is little left to do. My success will not come from the gathering of things, nor will my life be less for the gathering. Each task feels right, or is left undone. I don't struggle so that you will like me, clamour for attention, or fear being left alone. I welcome each who chooses to come with grace and an open heart and we will watch as the next shift comes for us all.

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