Have you ever noticed that life seems to consist of one phase after another? These are marked by certain periods of time with certain characteristics. Maybe you fill your time with particular activities, are involved with particular people, or feel overwhelmed by particular emotions. Maybe your deal with an illness, a death, a lost love, a new love affair, a new job, unemployment, a relocations, a birth…
It’s easy to miss these phases if we don’t pay attention. It’s easy to see them in retrospect. When we look backwards we can construct a timeline with all the phases of our life. In the moment, we may not realize we have been living in a phase, a period. When it ends, though, we may feel it distinctly.
I feel I am ending a phase and beginning a new one. As I write this I’m on my way back from New York City after seven weeks with my son. He was attending a dance program there and I was working and chaperoning. I’m heading home to spend a few weeks with my daughter before she heads off to college. Not only is my New York City summer phase ending, my daughter-at-home stage is ending.
Plus, I’m almost six months into my 50th year of life. I feel change reverberating through me. I feel it settling in. I feel myself re-evaluating, figuring out what this next period of my life should look like. I feel the effort I’ve been making on the work front possibly paying off. I feel myself getting ready…for what?
We change over time. Sometimes we lose ourselves. We get lost in our phases. Then we have to uncover ourselves, find ourselves again. Discover ourselves, discover our phases. Sometimes we find ourselves in our phases.
No matter what, life provides us with one phase after another, one melding one into the other or distinctly following another. Can you identify the phase you are in?
I agree, especially starting my 50’s. It sort of becomes, “my time” to blossom now, to pursue my own goals and fulfillment with my memoir, promoting and moving forward.
Maybe it is a midlife thing, Sonia. But I think we need to be a bit selfish (in a good way) earlier. Thanks for reading and commenting.