It is time...
I decided long ago that the year of my 40th I was going to embrace the transition. I was going to behold the transformation...accept the decade...wrap my heart and spirit around it and welcome it with open arms. I am bound and determined to keep that promise to myself, but I am not still in my conviction.
I keep teetering that one of the few gifts I would like to give myself is that of a visit to a therapist. I do not feel I am emotionally unwell, nor do I think that I am mentally in need of a diagnosis of any kind. I simply want to allow my spirit to sing, and I think sometimes the noise of life keeps our spirit in a hush. I would like to give her a place where she can release all of the old cobwebs of regret, disappointment, sadness, fear, bitterness and send it off into a big birthday balloon, that inevitably will also cost an arm and a leg. Oh well.
What would I say?
I would speak of the fears that I have as I say goodbye to the thirties. I would share the secrets of the flaws and frailities I don't want anyone to know exist. I would unleash all of the dreams, pipe or not, that are bound up inside, so fragile and meek unable to fly.
Dreams...
They are beautiful things. You allow yourself to make them and some, though unrealistic, keep you young at heart and guided. Some, simply add to your already self-loathing and self-deprication because they haven't been reached...year after year. I have them both.
I have reached many: graduation from college, becoming the teacher I dreamt and aspired to be since childhood and traveling to Ireland. I found the love of my life, had my most fairy-tale-esque and magical wedding, received my masters in education and finally, became a mother...thrice. I have a dream-built-from-scratch- home and a yummy life in that home. All this...before the ripe ol' age of 30. I am blessed indeed and to those doubters, I'd say Yes, dreams do come true!
But what of the old ones? ...the quiet, dusty and hidden-away dreams that tend to get lost in the shuffle? What to do with these when life presents the realities that come with your blessings? Tangled in the chaos and noise of life are these little sweet and saddened voices that find their way to my heart and whisper to my soul... "what about me?" and religiously and habitually year after year, I gaze lovingly at them, silence them, give them a gentle pat on the head and whisper back, "not now, dear...not now."
I must not be alone in this debacle, right? Surely every person has found it inconvenient to make a dream come true? Surely each and every one of us balances the weight of regret taking a path this way rather than that way because of....fear? timing? insecurity? lack of confidence? lack of funds? responsibility? impracticalities? etc. etc. etc.
ETC.
Insert response to therapist: these are only excuses, i am not brave. i have little willpower and i am afraid.
It comes down to that. I am about to check off the 40 and up box and I am still wallowing in the insecurities and self-abrasions of a young girl who is afraid. THAT, is what is holding me back. I could spew a hundred reasons why I should'nt go follow my first dream: there is no time, I have to work, who would watch the kids, how would we swing it financially, when would I have time when his work schedule is so screwy... blah blah blah. But what it comes down to on that dream is plain and as old as dirt: fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure. Fear of letting myself down. Fear of fear.
Happy Birthday.
So the grown up course of action here would be to say, screw fear and just try it! That's what I would say to my children. "You are larger than your fear. Fear cannot keep you from becoming who you are suppose to be. Fear is smaller and weaker than you. Fear is a door keeping you from entering into your true self..." ETC.
To begin my commitment to myself and my spirit...is to begin to let go of fear. THIS is a very difficult step, one I will willfully choose to try, but won't guarantee I'll be successful at. But I think I owe it to myself to not only recognize the whispers and unyielding yearning present, but the power it would be to leave this legacy of following a dream on to my children.
Birthday Wish #1: follow my dream.
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