The Gate Can Wait

I hit my lowest point the summer I turned 48. I’d been working in corporate America for years and one day I finally hit maximum burnout. Exhausted, mindless, numb and functioning in a deficit; barely surviving, definitely not living. The timing was ripe for a mid-life crisis but my abundantly cautious nature settled on the careful planning of one instead. So, I got comfortable with the idea of strategically curating a mid-life crisis instead of creating a catastrophic and irreversible disaster. Perhaps I might have the opportunity to build something that would benefit me in the end which I might actually like myself for and wouldn’t result in further self-loathing.

With all this overwhelm going on and everything seemingly out of my control, I felt helpless but to be pulled along. Suddenly a question came to me, quite spontaneously. What was the one thing I knew to be true? And my truth was this:

“I was going to write myself out of this job.”

Like a TV show writes a character out of the storyline by a gruesome murder or tragic accidental death, I began preparing myself a nice, clean career suicide. And I’ll tell you, the thought of it brought pure joy to my heart. That euphoric feeling that comes the moment you are hit with an epic epiphany such as this, and you finally understand how it feels to really dance in the rain.

Now, I had no idea if I could do it or even do it well, but what I did know, and here’s what I knew about my truth, was that trying to write was my lifeboat. The only thing I had to hold on to was that survival dingy, the S.S. TRYING, and I was determined to cling tight, waiting to be picked up by a rescue ship for however long it took. Ironically, while this should have filled me with feelings of great fear, I was instead blissfully floating along with my thoughts, steadfast in the knowledge of my secret plan that no one could take away from me. No one could micro-manage this part of me. I was free of judgment. I mean, this lifeboat was fully stocked and had just been waiting for me to climb in! Apparently, I’m pretty stubborn since I needed to be thrown overboard before I was willing to get into the damn thing! But here’s what happened when I did. My creativity that had been stagnated and stifled suddenly came rushing back and my fingers began to fly on the keyboard. The energy was instant and profound. I found that I wasn’t even moody during times when I couldn’t write. I still had this soul crushing full time job, a family and household. But I didn’t get moody or resentful because I always had writing to look forward to. It waited patiently, ever at my beck and call as no one thing ever had. It was my servant, and I it’s master, and no matter how good or bad my material was, it never once complained. It only said “keep going.” Writing was my new BFF.

At some point I did wonder why it had taken me so long to get to this point. I spent years switching careers, never quite figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Spoiler alert, I was indeed now a bona fide grown up, still trying to figure out my purpose. I was good at a lot of things but I was never GREAT at anything. Everyone else seemed to have it all figured out and they didn’t question everything as I did.

I spent a lifetime wondering why was I so hypersensitive, always observing and analyzing, so much contemplation going on in my head over and over. People would tell me, “Stop driving yourself crazy, stop being so sensitive (yep), I should relax and stop being so intense or tense and to let it go for crying out loud.” But I couldn’t. I had wasted far too many years trying to be something I wasn’t and what I wasn’t, was insensitive. Everything and everyone around me affected me deeply.

Steve Jobs once said that “we can only begin to connect the dots by looking back.” It occurred to me, as I sat in my dingy, thinking about how I would navigate without a rudder or oars that, in fact, I’d been writing my entire life. Each contemplation, every observation, the individual moments spent analyzing the feelings they evoked, all had been set carefully and purposefully aside in my toolbox for the day when I would need them. My life had provided me with the research I needed for my journey.

If I had tried writing in my 20’s I would have been terrible at it! Sure, it may have been imaginative and creative, but it would have been empty and lacking the critical connections to make it real and substantive. Only now can I appreciate all those years of uncertainty, of being poor and struggling to make ends meet. How could I have ever understood my life’s purpose without such hardships? Some people find their purpose early, others only at the very end. I would suggest that for many of us we find it along the way. It’s developed through our experiences. Our journey is our purpose.

I will leave you with this analogy. Life can be the difference between traveling in a luxury vehicle on an expressway or an old, beat-up pickup truck going down a long, unnavigated, dusty back road. While the luxury vehicle would have built-in GPS, soft leather seats and all the bells and whistles, the views would be blurry at best, the journey swift and straight, and the destination being the only goal at hand, predetermined and predictable.

Instead, my journey has been in that rickety Ford truck, with the path resembling more of a dry creek bed. No map, no compass, the windows cranked down and only a half-tank of gas. But the views have been memorable and breathtaking, the journey meandering through beautiful countryside, with fresh air, but more often rain on my face, the destination unknown, and all the stops along the way completely unpredictable and divine.

We are all making our own way through this life, waiting to die like sheep lined up at the gate. Some will jump onto the backs of others in their hurry to rush ahead to be first without even realizing why. As for me, I’ll be off to the side, under the shade of a hundred-year-old maple tree, taking my sweet time while I nourish myself and contemplate the beauty around me. The gate can wait.