Red Cedar

Omigod.  I  had an exchange with someone on an unnamed social media network yesterday which ended with her telling me that because I am forty, there is no way I could possibly understand what being twenty-five right now could be like because it’s so hard to find a job that pays well and I have no idea! No idea people! (Because of course I’ve never been twenty-five, broke, looking for a job, going through a divorce and tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Not me.)

I mean, it’s one thing when your teenager says “you just don’t understand” – but really, this makes me feel old!

And why?  Because it reminded me so strongly,  so shockingly, of the hubris of twenty-five. As when my step-daughter intimates the same, I am viscerally reminded of fifteen and feeling trapped. It makes me feel old because I realize how far one travels between fifteen and twenty-five, twenty-five and (almost) forty. How we are not who we thought we were. How we are not who we thought we would become.

Which makes me glad. Ecstatic, really. That I am not trapped. At fifteen, or twenty-five. Or forty. That I will not only know myself right now, but there will be a new me, and a new path in the future. That the older I get, the more freely myself I become (even as I conversely feel more stuck in my job, or held fast to my mortgage).

HOWEVER (and there is always one of those) it also reminds me of all the similar things I have said to my elders over the years and which I have to stop saying because it always comes back to haunt us doesn’t it?

And so! It is good to remember we are never the person we are for more than the moment in which we are being that person and too quickly we are another person, one who knows more than we did a few minutes or years ago, and there is no person who looks back at fifteen or twenty-five or forty and thinks – oh yes, that was the year I knew it all. Because we never do. Though I do think it’s  always better to be here than there.

Enough said. Expect more ruminations on aging as the birthday nears, I’m indulging myself in age these days.

Besides being sick and finishing a scarf, the other notable first thing of 2013  is that I applied for two jobs today. This isn’t a new year’s resolution or anything, just that several positions in the same organization came up before Christmas – I’m highly qualified for one, mostly qualified for another –  so I gussied up my resume and got a package submitted for each this morning.  We’ll see if I hear anything back about that, but just the fact of doing it has made me feel optimistic for the new year. An omen for new opportunities.

What is it about the holidays looming that makes everything seem so drear? I ask now because I realize that in the last three days, despite this cold, I’ve felt more positive about projects and ideas than I did in the whole three months leading up to Christmas. For real. As I write, my overwhelming sensation is one of relief. Done for another year! It’s rolling off my fingertips as I type! It’s loosening my shoulders and bringing a smile to my face! And for the first time in months I’m starting to feel….. light. Lighter anyway.

Which brings the realization that what I really want for 2013 is to live lighter. To consume less heavy, sugary, alcoholic things. To stop taking on other people’s judgement, and to stop judging others. To lay down the emotional weights of the past, and of family. To find time for sitting without having to do every second of every day. To stop responding to the mental clutter of media and computers that envelops us. To keep pulling myself out of the toxic system, and immerse myself in the life I want. But that’s not a set of resolutions, because I don’t need to shovel one more set of “I shoulds” onto my load. Instead it’s just an idea. A touchstone to which I might return.

If 2013 is about anything, I want it to be about light/ness. Which means the ability to float, to fly, to try new things too!

…..To judge less and love more in 2013.

That is all.  Happy New Year!