johnmdemarco posted on December 04, 2009 07:26
A very wise and seasoned woman in my profession told me yesterday how the time spanning ages 48-52 is a window “when you question everything about your life. People think they’re going crazy…but when you come out the other side, you’ll have lots of clarity. I call it an awakening.”
In response, I told my friend that I believe the window of ages 38-42 is a similar life quake, and she said that is entirely possible. Now just a couple of months shy of 42, I can reflect on the past four years and see the best and worst of times—and, overall, celebrate the deep spiritual, intellectual and emotional awakening that I believe has taken place in my life with a certain congruent clarity.
A couple of items I find interesting as I reflect on this era include part of what got it started. My father Frank died when I was not quite through half of my 37th year. I remember the months after his death, doing a lot of soul searching about my career and spending lots of time pulling together memories and anecdotes from my younger life that eventually became a memoir.
Shortly before I turned 38 I stumbled across some key tools for better understanding my strengths and areas of passion, and was blessed that a door opened to work full-time in the field of organizational development. Around this time an entire new niche of reading opened up for me that has only continued to expand. In fact, as I look at my list of “favorite books” on my various social media profiles, a significant chunk of them have been read during the past four years. This tells me a lot, since I have been a voracious reader most of my life.
And overall, I can discern how the wineskins have been shed and reborn across the key dimensions of my life. Spiritually, I am not the same individual anymore. I have not abandoned the spiritual context that profoundly shaped me in my mid-20s to early 30s, but it has evolved and expanded and feels more authentic and less dogmatic now than it might have a decade ago. Emotionally I have come to learn more about myself and can better grapple with the circumstances that lead to pain and the ones that surrender me to bliss. Intellectually it has all been a learning journey, like the thrill of tasting new, exotic foods.
When I put together the spiritual, emotional and intellectual, a certain symphony has been gradually emerging, a new song full of different notes and melodies and crescendos. I know now that it won't be the final song I play. The progression of this music has not occurred without pain, discouragement and uncertainty, but I continue to press on and seek to not define myself by whatever failures I have experienced across the past four years or even across the past four weeks. Each day there is a new sheet of music to play, as the orchestra of awakening stays in the pit of my heart and transforms craziness into clarity.