If I were 50...

I think I’ve been unknowingly, unwittingly been holding out hope for something that may be unattainable for me. Today, while walking across Creighton campus and reflecting on my time here, I realized that I’ve had this delusion: the belief that someday, transitions will be easier for me. I’ve always expected that I would get better at change with age and experience. Kind of like how you get better at cooking, or music, or procrastinating, or wiping your ass, or most anything that you do a lot. 

I have had this absurd image of myself as a 50-something, placidly moving from one life experience to the next, graciously accepting of the ebb and flow of life. It’s all very Zen. (In the image I also have salt-and-pepper hair and am wearing some kind of flowy skirt. I might be high.) It’s as if somehow I magically become a completely different person with a drastically altered personality over the next 20 years.

Let’s take this apart, though, shall we? Has anyone ever, ever, described me as “placid?” Have I ever worn a flowy skirt? Would I ever consider allowing gray hairs to show when I’m in my 50s? And, perhaps most importantly, have I ever moved on easily? No, no, probably not, and no.

The purpose that this fantasy serves is the wish for a pain-free existence. I hate the way it feels when I have to say goodbye. I get angry with myself for letting myself hurt, for not protecting myself better. Yet, when I take a step back from the self-criticism, I remember that pain is just part of life. It’s normal, everyone feels it. And in my heart of hearts, I know that if I stop feeling hurt and sadness that something has fundamentally gone very wrong within me. I have detached. I have given up.  

Today I realized that I need to let go of this future fantasy me and just accept myself for who I am: a person who becomes emotionally involved in what she does. That means that when I start something, I’m all in. I soak into the pores of the project; I fill all of the cracks and crevices with love and energy.  The rewards are numerous: I’m enthusiastic, I’m motivated. I have fun. People can tell that I care. The nasty underbelly of it all is that when whatever it is that I’m doing comes to an end, I feel a bit bereft. It’s hard to extricate myself when I’ve become so emotionally entangled. Granted, the detangling can be done…but the process stings.

Carl Rogers, one of the most influential psychologists ever (and a personal favorite of mine), is quoted as saying “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” So that person who I am, the Me who joyfully invests and who feels a lot of angst when something ends ….I’m going to learn to love her, rather than scorn her. I’ll try to move into the pain and accept it, rather than berate myself when I feel it. And I’ll replace my old delusional image of pseudo-hippie future me with a more realistic one: 50-something, with reddish-brownish hair (because when I go gray, I’m going to add red. You just wait), clad in jeans, energetic, and engaged with what she’s undertaken. Full of all kinds of emotion and probably telling someone about it. Full of hope. Fully me.