I Was The One I Was Looking For All Along

The two silver oversized balloons she carried out of the party store meant someone special was having a birthday. A big birthday as indicated by the helium-filled “5” and “0” she held tightly as she made her way across the parking lot.

I don’t remember the specific details of the exact day I turned the Big 5-0. But little did I know it would be the first day of my most significant decade of personal growth and transformation.

A milestone birthday can serve as a catalyst for change, but me turning 50 felt more like an extension of being 49. The odometer marking the miles of my life may have turned over, but I was still traveling the same road at the same pace, a road with many miles behind me and hopefully many more in front of me. Same road, same view, just another year older.

Hardly a catalyst.

The real catalyst was a growing sense of inner frustration. Nothing in particular, more of a general level of discontent and misalignment which peaked by the middle of the decade. 

I’d always carried a silent frustration within me. Life was something I’d often struggle to understand as well as my place in it. The outside world never saw that side, a side whose voice I was quite good at repressing. In time I learned such a powerful voice can never be fully silenced and as I approached birthday number 55 that voice had become more determined to be heard. It grew louder, more persistent, at times even hostile. It had something to tell me and it was going to get me to notice.

Life does have a way of getting your attention, doesn’t it? At first the hints are subtle, slight nudges we often ignore. Until the gentle nudges become flagrant pushes we can no loner dismiss their presence. 

The noise in my head got too loud to ignore.

My 50’s became a decade of me unexpectedly making peace with me. Of gradually creating a safe space where I could unfold my past and begin to free myself from the decades of limiting beliefs and mindsets which kept me stuck while fueling the frustrations I quietly carried within.

For years I searched outside of me to heal what I could only heal myself. I was really my only remaining option.

That’s what that voice had been trying to tell me all along.

Life asks some critical questions of us, especially when we get to this stage. The questions take on more significance when you understand most of your life has already happened. “Who am I?” “What matters?” “Who matters?” Awareness is the first step in achieving alignment, and in your 50’s such alignment comes with an urgency and an intentionality the scarcity of time is so good at creating.

I wish I had learned what I needed to learn sooner. But our lives unfold as they do for a reason. Our journey is ours alone to undertake, no matter where it may take us.

I am grateful for it all, the bruises, the scars, the setbacks, and the comebacks. But I’m most grateful for the safe space I’ve become for myself. The growing intensity of the frustrations and disappointments eventually drove me deeply into me. It was there where I could no longer justify being the primary source of my angst and self abuse. It was there where I instead met myself with compassion, kindness, forgiveness, and acceptance and built the emotional and spiritual foundation my life stands upon today. 

In a lifetime of searching, I was the one I was looking for all along.

Perhaps you’re the one you’ve been looking for as well.

Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash