My midlife crisis…or midlife evaluation…began when I was about to turn 52. I had just ended another long-term, dead-end relationship and was reeling from the pain that had caused me. I couldn’t get solid ground underneath me and I felt lost and angry. I couldn’t believe that I had given so much time to other people and had lost of part of me each time it didn’t work out. My soul was being dismantled once piece at a time and I had to make some changes before there was nothing left of me. I call it my Eat, Pray, Love moment.
I grew up in a small town in the Midwest in the 60’s and 70’s. I love that I started out there and was able to hang on to my innocence into my early adult years until I fell in love for the first time my Junior year in college. Sure, I’d dated in high school and even some in college, but this was different, this was a woman and it felt so amazing to me. Everything that I had ever heard or read about love all made sense to me now…all the feelings that I never had before came flooding through me. What an experience that was. Perhaps, this relationship set the template for what was to come because it ended abruptly and took the first piece of me with it.
The next few years were spent trying to figure out who I wanted to be in this world and who I loved. I worked out a lot and kept myself in shape, but emotionally I was on a journey that took me on quite a ride. I started out by getting into a relationship with a woman who was bossy and probably somewhat controlling, but we had a wonderful time together. Having never been in a relationship before, I had no frame of reference what they were supposed to be like and assumed I would spend the rest of my life loving her. When that didn’t happen, the next chapter began which was trying to figure out who I was really attracted to and what I wanted in a relationship. So, 20 years and many relationships later, I found myself looking back and wondering what's next on my journey. Stay tuned...