I learned today that the root of the word “crisis” is from the Greek word “krisis” or ‘decision’ originating from the word krinein or ‘decide’.
The word “crisis” emerging from the general sense of a “decision point”, mostly suggesting (at that time) the turning point of a disease.
I also heard someone in a podcast this week describe a midlife crisis as “the yearning to explore, after many years spent exploiting” and that got me thinking and wondering about this whole “mid-life-crisis” thing.
How cliche of me to approach turning 40 with deep introspection and even, poetry.
I can’t help it.
The past 3 years have been preparing and leading me to this very threshold, and I have to say…the hindsight is blinding.
But that is what long term DIS-EASE can do…in which case, this really IS a crisis.
A moment to pause, review and decide.
A turning point.
I took a birdseye view of my timeline:
Surveying a lifetime-
of trying to belong.
In review, it seems that striving to be the bigger person…really only ever made me the bigger person.
A sturdy, reliable container for all of the thoughts, fears and feelings of those around me.
Emotional.
The energy in motion that became too heavy or cumbersome to carry for many…I willingly absorbed.
In hopes that my swelling and sweating would be worth something?
Stayed reliable and ready.
Hoping that my tolerance of the burden would prove I was lovable.
Hoping they would let me STAY…if I found ways to prove I was useful.
I began to believe that my own strength was for the purpose of being strong for others.
I didn’t know how to be strong for myself.
But I kept showing up.
Me, myself and I.
Learning eventually that she would be the ONLY one coming back for me.
Im an expert at shapeshifting now.
Except it’s no longer to earn approval.
The more I tried not to say something,
the more I set myself up to get caught up in the tower’s fall.
Leaving the rubble of all the words and memories stuck in my throat and lungs like gravel.
Packed tight and hard around my heart.
Choking out life and begging to remain politely undetected.
But healing would not allow me to stay buried under there for long.
Suffocate and die, or let go?
Discover who I was REALLY meant to be?
Discover what it’s REALLY like to be free?
Turns out the answer wasn’t either/or.
It was BOTH.
Death and rebirth wrapped, woven and disclosed within my DNA.
Destined to show me the way; myself.
“So, tell me how to feel now?!”
I cried, as I listened to my own heart break, and learned to hold sacred space for ME.
Finally.
For the first time in my life…
I went back and sat with her.
Whispered in her ear….
YOU belong here.
YOU belonged there.
You belong EVERYWHERE.
All of this happening to bring you back home to YOURSELF.
To discover that you were never actually lost.
Never a burden.
Worthy of love, that’s the truth,
encrypted within your own NAME.
I told her,
Take up space and quit trying to hide.
Behind couch pillows and self-deprecating jokes.
Be loud.
Keep laughing fully and WHOLE heartily.
Keep reaching out first,
even when you feel dumb,
because that’s YOU.
Tried and true.
Believing the best in ALL of them,
until the end.
Keep forgiving.
Keep apologizing.
Keep looking for other perspectives
outside of your own,
because THAT is where we learn the MOST.
Keep looking for love, in all it’s forms.
Because, you WILL ALWAYS find what you are looking for.
And remember, nothing is wasted.
