Last month, I celebrated my birthday.
57.
There have been two times in my life when the transition from one age to the next has been challenging—mentally and emotionally. The transition from 56 to 57 has been one of those times. The other time was the transition from 34 to 35.
I can’t tell you why these particular age transitions were difficult. They weren’t significant birthdays. I wasn’t transitioning from one decade to the next. Yet, these birthdays felt like thresholds somehow—that some significant change was stirring.
Of course, my birthday passed rather unremarkably. Whatever angst and dread I was feeling passed and a sense of peace took their place.
I don’t know whether this may have been the cause or effect (or neither) of the bumpiness of this recent birthday transition, but I had been feeling the acute bittersweetness that comes from knowing I have fewer years ahead of me than I have behind me. There’s joy, for sure, that I’m still here living my life. And, there’s grief. Grief that life’s great adventures are behind me and that the opportunities for new beginnings are limited.
Then a few days before my birthday, this wisdom dropped in …
“You have your whole life ahead of you.”
It’s true. I do.
No matter my age, my whole life does lay ahead of me—until it doesn’t. But until then, life’s possibilities for adventure and new beginnings remain endless. They are only limited by my narrow thinking. When I think my years are limited, life’s possibilities become limited too.
When I forget that I have my whole life ahead of me, I get stuck, waxing nostalgic about something from the past that I think I’m missing. When I forget that I have my whole life ahead of me, I stop moving forward.
As a gift to myself to counteract the mental and emotional stagnation I had been feeling, I pulled a couple of cards on my birthday. I asked two questions inspired by therapist and life coach Patty Bechtold:
What am I moving toward?
What am I moving away from?
The card I pulled in response to the first question was Allow Enchantment from my own card deck. Of course. What better guidance for staying open to life’s possibilities than allowing myself to look for enchantment and to be enchanted by the world around me.
In answer to the second question, what I’m moving away from, I pulled Forgiveness from The Wild Offerings card deck. I interpreted this message as asking me to let go of the resistance that comes from not accepting myself and my life fully.
Taken together, I believe the cards are inviting me to move away from expectations and perfectionism and toward a beginner’s mind. By forgiving my expectations and perfectionistic tendencies, I let go of the need to know the answer or control the outcome (like with this post, haha!). In that newly created space, my beginner’s mind is free to seek enchantment, the place where all possibilities exist.
Let me ask you …
Do you feel the bittersweetness of having fewer years ahead of you than behind you?
What stories are you telling yourself around life’s possibilities being limited?
What would you do next if you believed that you have your whole life ahead of you?
While we’re on the subject …
If you often find yourself drawn to the melancholic, feeling the poignancy in even joyous moments, I highly Susan Cain’s book Bittersweet—How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole.
I found this post from former coach/mentor Bev Barnes about renewal in life’s third act quite powerful.
Finally, I love this quote from Morgan Harper Nichols that a friend recently shared:
“There is still time. There is still space for you to grow in beautiful ways.”
Yes! Here’s to our continued growth and renewal!