The past decade has been… tumultuous… inside. With flamboyant expressions of anger, despair, sadness and depression. I’ve retreated more and more into myself until I spend most of my days alone, in silence. It’s been delicious.
Thank you mid-life hormones for paving the way.
Now, as I approach 50 (in 74 hours & 5 minutes), I find myself settling. Placid. Flat.
There are still rises in my emotional temperature, but they are more subtle, contained, measured.
Is this maturity? Evolution? Or just another chemistry experiment inside my hormone-ridden body?
It’s not actually pleasant. I’m not accustomed to a life without highs. But I question the source of the highs that I relied upon most of my life. Did they come from inside or from my mind? I suspect the latter, and thus doubt their sincerity.
Perhaps this shift in chemistry is paving the way for yet another treasure. Equanimity. A life without sharp edges and brittle peaks. (Or perhaps the time has come for me to consider medication?)
Despite this flatness, my life continues to unfold. My learning continues to blossom. My world continues to open. My work continues to expand.
If I am careful. If I align myself from the inside out. Say with meditation and yoga and right diet (all dull choices), then I find myself slipping into effortless ease. Effortless ease. Imagine that… Things just fall into place. Details. Objects. Solutions.
Without the distraction of the dramatic highs and lows which have colored the past decade, I sense the way with greater clarity. I get out of the way more often. I learn, again and again, that the way begins… in me.
~
More on the path to 50:
FU 50′s
Being 49
Tribute to the 40′s
30′s Retrospective
Turning 20
The Hardest Decade? 10-19
The First Decade
Two Owls Calling 
I think we become the Velveteen Rabbit, if we allow it
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I wish there was a “like” button Peggy. I love that.
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The 50s are preparation for getting over vanity. You start the decade with hormones thinking, “This isn’t that bad.” Then, you transit through the declining hormone years, barely noticing that your dimples are on their way to becoming trenches and the wobble you feel under your neck isn’t your shirt collar blowing in the breeze. Then come the residual hormone years, when you realize that you will never, ever look as young as you did even six weeks ago. And then, 60 hits and you settle for “well-groomed” on the outside and focus more on keeping your health and trying to make sense of what the heck happened.
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