Bear with me. I want to tell you about something. I want to tell you about how it feels to be in mid-life, how I suddenly feel like an adolescent all over again, the angst angstier than ever, the “Who Am I’s” and “Who will I become?” louder than ever. How my testosterone is so low that I feel a little dead inside. How my thyroid is “hypo” and vitamin D is low, and how my gut biome is apparently unhappy. I want to tell you how all of this has me feeling disconnected and dismembered from myself.
Or maybe I want to tell you about how the recent writing retreat I attended sparked me back a little. Or was it the hormone treatment I started a few weeks ago? Or the therapy I’ve been doing? Or the gazillion supplements for the gut biome thing? Or the Wellbutrin I started many weeks ago? Honestly, I’m not sure. Mid-life adolescence is tricky and rife with unsureness.
I want to tell you that it takes as long as it takes, and it takes whatever it takes.
I want to tell you that you’re not only allowed, but you must explore the parts of yourself that have been carrying loads of sadness. I want to tell you that it will be wildly uncomfortable, and transformational. That unprocessed grief will arrive. And, perhaps hardest of all, the self-betrayal you once sneakily labeled as compassion and patience for others will want to be forgiven.
In the end, you will be so glad for it.
Bear with me as I tell you about being human. You get to have it all, the full range of the experience. You get to, you get to, you get to. What a privilege.
Yesterday, a wise Tarot reader comforted me and congratulated me. She told me I’ve done such good work in my life. Joyful work. Healing work. Trusting work. How I’m right on track, that I’m making brilliant choices toward feeling better. That my vibration is getting closer to that of Love. That soon, I’ll awaken to a deeper, truer layer of my authentic self, and it will feel like freedom.
It takes as long as it takes, and it takes whatever it takes.
And finally, I want to tell you how there is so much bravery in our sadness, and how from its floorboard, hope eventually rises. Creative offerings will be born, a kind of alchemizing of your pain into prayer and joy.
Keep feeling. Keeping making your art. Keep making choices toward feeling better, and keep trusting the voice inside you – the one that is your guiding light in the darkness. Soon, you will emerge from your wintering, and into the abundance of all that awaits.
XO, Kelly Rae
PS: This writing was inspired by a line in the gorgeous poem by Paul Hostovsky called Coconut. The line was, “Bear with me, I want to tell you something about…”
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