Note 4: Honesty is weird
When I started this, it was in a sort of flow with little thought of the process ahead. It felt like the right thing to do, and I try to navigate a lot by that feeling as it has led me to great places. It still feels right, but I realize that I will eventually get to the weirder, and the darker parts of this midlife crisis. Maybe that is where this crisis stops being midlife and is only existential, unless my version of getting a motorcycle and learning to surf is “setting out on a spiritual journey”. You know what, now that I wrote it I totally see it. Yeah, this is a midlife crisis. But, my spirituality is not a solution to my midlife crisis. It’s a result of it. I never intentionally set out on a spiritual journey. It went from zero to hundred in about six weeks. I was a convinced atheist, for pete’s sake. I based my world view on rationality and science. Logic dictated to me that materialism must be the philosophical school that best describes reality. Then suddenly, I asked the wrong questions, found way to get answers, expanded my consciousness through, erhm, herbs, and the floodgates opened. It opened my mind to so many perspectives, and it also complicated my career. And this is where the crisis becomes midlife again: I know what I want to do, I just don’t exactly know how to make a living off it yet, and that process is still a tangle to me.
I want to keep being completely honest in these notes. Partly to take the advice of Brené Brown, and allow my shame no place to hide. Parts of the process get weird, and weird is often where I stop having public discussions because I’m afraid I’m not good at being weird. Weird is where it gets real. I can’t help anyone else, I can only help myself, but I think that if I’m honest about my process, maybe someone will find it useful. I think that loneliness is one of the top five words I would say I would use to label the whole crisis. My friends and my husband listened as much as they could, but the weirdest, most ineffable parts could only be discussed with someone who had experienced it. For me, that person was Tom Morgan, whose posts here on Medium I highly recommend. If I can ease that loneliness of just a few other people, I consider it a good, honest day’s work.
If you know me, and if these notes sometimes seem dark, I don’t want you to worry. Parts of the process were dark, but there’s always something constructive in the darkness, even if we can’t see what it is until after we left it. The greater the darkness, the greater the treasure it hides. And if you worry about me, then you were part of what kept the darkness from consuming me. Realizing that I can rely on you was what gave me strength to trust myself again. It’s nice to know that you don’t have to bear the weight of the world alone.
