Life

Personal patio picnic!

I sit now on my patio, sipping a 7 & 7 and snacking on some Original Goldfish, in celebration of packing up my exterior life and having successfully delivered it all to a garage in Aurora. On April 5th it will depart by truck to Long Beach, CA (thanks to the strikes in Oakland), where it will then be put on a ship. I don't know where it will connect to after that and I don't know if it will travel by truck or train, or both, to make it inland to Ulaanbaatar. But it really doesn't matter--the reality is that it is on its way and should arrive before I do (on July 2nd). 

As I drove down I-25 with the sun setting over the front range, I thought a lot about LIFE. A common one, or an uncommon one? How would I define those? How would my friends and family define them? What makes a life matter? What is left when a life ends? What am I up to in life? What are you up to in life? It's a weighty subject, no doubt. I've never really cared to know the meaning of life......because I've known for a long time that LOVE is what gives meaning TO life. 

I was fortunate enough to have a great childhood and youth. I have two amazing parents who have stood behind me and encouraged me throughout my life. I have a unique and individual relationship with each of my siblings and a host of great friends. I've never lacked for love in my life. 

That said, the love between Z and I is different than anything I've known before. It is that soul connection of which I did not believe in.....until it happened to me. He knows me. Knows my heart, my soul, my mind. He calms me. Centers me. And the best part, I feel free to be myself and to be vulnerable. He will catch me when I fall, hold me steady when I falter, and celebrate me when I succeed. He gets me. He wants to KNOW me. 

Why do I feel the need to tell you all this? Because it's simple: Living a life

See how he makes me smile!

without his love is unimaginable. This is why moving to Asia seems like a no brainer to me. I want him. I like who I am when I'm near him. I like to think of whom I'm yet to become. 

We throw around the phrase "midlife crisis" fairly easily in America. I don't know if it is culturally universal, or unique to America. But I suspect that a number of people have looked at my life in the past 8 months and thought....yup...in her 40s....must be a midlife crisis. I'm not immune to the fact that I'm a walking cliche. Twice divorced, leaving a dream job, and throwing all known things into the wind in pursuit of a dream. An entirely new dream. One I could not have predicted 9 months ago. 

But I wonder....why do we choose to attach "crisis" to midlife? Why not transformation? Or evolution? Or, as a good friend of mine put it, a midlife awakening? Who decided it needed the negative connotation of crisis on the end of it? It might be a crisis....or it might not. 

For me.....my LIFE had lost luster in recent years. I remember being 18, graduating high school, and thinking about all the exciting forks in the road that were ahead of me. I felt that through my 20s...and even into my early 30s....but then, there were no more forks. Nothing left to discover or find. It felt like a dead end. No excitement ahead. And I was sad. 

But you see...one does not have to be resigned in life. It is a choice. And I choose other than resignation. I don't know how it will all play out and I'll have to figure plenty of things out AS I go (OMG....I won't have health insurance in July!!!)....but what's wrong with this approach? Not a darn thing. You see....I went from no forks....to an exciting new path with unknown forks around the bend. 

Yes, my life is mine to create. Just as yours, is yours. So are you creating it?