Halfway to a hundred.....

I was in a bookstore waiting for a friend when I picked up a book and read a paragraph that would change the way I viewed my life.

"Most of us, halfway to a hundred, confront a need for greater self-awareness. We reach a point when the power of youth is gone, the possibility of failure presents itself, and the dreams of earlier times seem shallow and pointless. And then we find ourselves asking the tough questions: What am I meant to do now? What really matters? Who am I?" (from The Road Back to Yourself: The Second Journey by Joan Anderson)

Maybe it's because I was approaching the "halfway to a hundred" mark, or maybe it's because I recognized the sense of yearning for finding out what's next, but something caught my interest in this first paragraph of the book.

I bought it and took it back to the hotel where I was spending the night alone. I had travelled by myself to a place I loved and missed. While I had a practical and necessary reason for the trip, my decision to splurge on a comfy higher end hotel room for the night was just a whim driven by the desire to treat myself to a night of solitude and time for reflection. It was mere "coincidence" (I don't really believe in coincidence) that I found this book and happened to pick it up and read this first paragraph that spoke to me so clearly. I stayed up all night reading the book from cover to cover, and in that night found a validation for the restlessness that I had been feeling.

In that one night I made the decision to be true to this woman who had experienced my life and to honor her journey. She had done the best that she could do at the time with all the strength and courage that she was able to summon. She had always tried to do the right thing, and in that, sometimes suffocated pieces of who she really was. She made mistakes to be sure, and while it is easy now to look back and see where she could have made different choices, at the time the road not taken was not so well illuminated.

In that night I knew that, at halfway to a hundred, it was time to find what I was meant to do with the life I was gifted with, and to relax and enjoy the rest of the journey.

In that night I made the decision to begin this blog and to resume writing.

I'm not the best writer, but I'm not the worst either. I'm not going to compare myself, instead I'm just going to write from my heart as I am inspired to do. I am resurrecting some dreams that have laid dormant for far too long!