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 Continue reading “I Was The One I Was Looking For All Along” →