Let us create that life. Fully ours.
I have accompanied many over the years, and when it comes to women in their middle years, not a youngster anymore, but not simply a mother, not yet an elder, … somewhere in between, there is this recurring thing - a prise-de-conscience if you will - that happens to us… where we wake up in our current lives and do not recognise it as something that belongs to us anymore1.
Now, this is not something new, and you can read up on it in detail in many of the great books of our elders and about the spiritual journey from the fertile years into the perimenopause transition and then into menopause and what Miranda Gray calls the Shapeshifting and then Crone years before our soul return (=death)2.
What I wonder is this:
How come that we feel that the life we had was not something we ourselves built ourselves?
How can we draw a direct link between feeling like something is missing, or that we have regrets or even that we thought the person we are with was the perfect partner, when they are not.. how do we go from there then to … this is not mine. I have to start over?
Is it dissociation between our past selves and our current self that has stepped out of the illusion of whatever we convinced ourselves was important to us at any given time?
But, how can it then not be ours? Our very own creation?
And do we really have to quit the job, sell the house, leave the kids, take a new lover to chase after what we now have decided would feel like the ‘new life’ we are looking for? Do we have to find the next best thing to make ours?
The mind really is a tricky beast.
Here is the thing: even if your life was unpleasant, horrible and downright impossible to live, it was still something you held all the keys to and threaded all the wefts onto the loom.
Mind you, please, I am not saying in any way that you are responsible for your own suffering. But maybe our first step needs to be to accept our own agency in the situations we find ourselves in to step away from the idea that we are victims of outer circumstances.
If - and it is a big if - we can accept that there is no shame or even higher responsibility for our actions, that there is nobody judging us for our failures, then maybe this is the moment we can step out of the sadness of having failed at all.
Life is messy. And you all know that I keep repeating it. It’s a mantra.
Not a heart mantra, or a sutra of any kind.
Not one to elevate our experience, but to remind us that whatever we do, living is not done in the calm zen gardens of our visualisations or spiritual practices, not in the beautiful sunsets that remind us of love we once held and aspire again to, but rather in the lonely moments when we wail against the injustices of having lost sight of what is precious to us.
Not one to guide you in the lost moments. Or to reassure you in doubtful moments.
But rather, it serves as a reminder that the highest thing asked of you while being here on earth is to live. The messier your experience is, the more lived your life will be. If then, we can make sure to hurt as few people as possible, the better. Ourselves included. Making yourself wrong in hindsight is a certain way to create more suffering and guilt for yourself.
The simple truth is, even the life that no longer feels like it is yours, or it no longer aligns with your highest wishes, because you got distracted on the way, because you lost sight of what love you wanted to live in this life, or because the job you thought was your life’s worth suddenly has become a prison of thought, or because you have lost the inspiration to do what you used to love… the reasons can be as endless as the ocean’s waves on your mind’s shores… it does not matter… that life? It is still yours.
You created it.
Oh, but why am I harping on this so intensely? Why is it so important, or why did the article that I read a few weeks ago spark this whole exploration?
Nothing simpler, my friend.
Because… if you created it, then you get to uncreate it. Change it. Own it. Breathe new life into it. Review it. Break it open. Throw it into the wind or bury it under a new pathway. You.
Only you.
Go. And own it. Own every messy part of it. All the detours. All the bad choices. The bad hair, and the worse clothes. The break ups, the melt downs, the crying, and ugly anger and the unjust judgement. Own it all. Accept it, human.
Child. Take it. Play with it. And recreate it…
… every…
… single…
day.
Until your life is spent.
And on the last day, when your last step has been taken, and your last breath is near, know that all is and always has been…
… well.
I am including myself in this, even if my experience as a neurodiverse woman is a reiteration of this process every few years or so, every few months. I am waiting for research and neuro-curious researchers to have an idea what is the reason for this ‘waking up’ moment where we suddenly seem to have lost a few months, and things just feel… outdated in our own lives and we start to scramble to catch up and update changed lines and plans.
From Red Moon to Dark Moon, only published in German and Spanish, English forthcoming, 2025. Macro Edition.