Midlife Unraveling

In my very early 40’s, I unraveled my life.  I sometimes will say “I blew up my life” when I am feeling the need to be very dramatic.  I ended my 12-year relationship, quit my job (which led to me putting my career on hold) and moved from New Jersey back to Alabama where I was born and raised.  I call it an unraveling because these were the strings that held up the fabric and very texture of my identity and being. 

This did not happen overnight, and in fact I would argue that it was a good twenty years in the making.  I spent my 20’s and 30’s living the best life I knew how to live.  But due to the very nature of inexperience and lack of internal awareness and guidance, I wove the fabric of my life with thread that was weak and brittle.

 I often say that I got everything I thought I wanted.  Everything I sought and worked to achieve became my reality.  I say that I looked around and realized it wasn’t actually the life I wanted to live.  This is a perspective in retrospect because in the moments leading up to the blowing up of my life and then in the moments of the blowing up of my life, it felt more like a flat-out running from my life without a clue as to why I was running or to where I was headed.   “It is also emblematic of the longing for incarnation, of an unbearable substrate of wanting, of not finding a home in this world or in the next, someone or something that walks the halls of our house or our mind looking for what will help to lay its own self to rest.” ‘Haunted’ by David Whyte in Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning

I am now in my early mid 40s and am weaving my life back together.  I am exploring my inner landscape so that I may find the strong and sturdy thread of a life that feels true to my soul’s identity and being.  This blog is an attempt to write down the process as I move through it and hopefully connect with any of you that feel a resonance with my words.