I've called this season of my life a great many things--from midlife awakening to a cocoon of hell and everything in between.
Really what is happening is an unwinding of all the things I thought I knew and the beliefs I held about who I am in this world.
Time is unwinding the armor I built up to protect myself in the hierarchical complexity of corporate life. I have said goodbye to the title and job I worked so hard to create--Head of Global Well-Being. Emotionally, this title served as false validation that I had arrived. That by achieving a 22-year goal, I somehow became worthy of the beautiful life I'd been given at birth. With my title gone, and no daily achievements to hide behind, I am realizing that I have always been enough. Though, I'd be lying if I said I feel enoughness daily. The unwinding is in knowing that my job never made me more worthy of my own love. Self-love is our birthright.
The beautiful mid-century modern dream home my husband and I poured our life savings into has been stripped away by the choice to live with more autonomy. This house stood like a false beacon of prosperity. I remember in our first months there I filled it with flowers, ceramics, and beautiful furnishings. I stared at its grand suspended staircase for hours--barely able to comprehend that this stuff was all mine.
WIth time, my beautiful zen den, filled with personal touches and plants galore, became a gilded prison, and my conspicuous consumption kept me captive within its walls. Now, free of the house, I realize that home is wherever my puppies and partner are, and further my body, which works diligently to house my soul despite the years of self torture. In the end, as we had to move and box all the things we'd purchased through the years, I recognized the road to hell is not only paved with good intentions, but also in trying to buy happiness.
I spent my late teens to my early 40s starving and overexercising trying to fit a genetically midsize body into a waif's wardrobe. The thing about perimenopause is that as my hormones shifted I could eat nothing, move all-day long, and try every supplement and bit of snake oil on the market, and I still couldn't return to my pre-40s body. After forgoing my occasional cocktail and cutting out sugar made me more miserable than I already was, I started to accept my new curves. Now, I move and eat for health and joy, and am beginning to feel good in this new stronger more supple body. I realized that there is no fountain of youth and seeking endless longevity is just another moving goal post for me to chase.
For years, I have viewed my constantly ruminating, highly sensitive mind as a flaw, and believed that leaving the corporate world would help me destress or somehow change the way I process the world. I thought by escaping toxic work environments, I would somehow leave my perfectionistic, people pleasing, impostery tendencies behind. But as they say, "wherever you go, there you are."
The Great Unwinding means meeting myself where I am, and learning to love the soft, squishy, overthinking parts I have tried so hard to bury. Alone now, without bosses and accolades to pat me on the back (not that it happened much in 22 years), I am left to self-soothe and provide myself with compassion as scaffolding to help me grow a deeply aligned business. Unspooling means accepting that I am not tragically flawed, but rather deeply human and that my highly empathic qualities are gifts not failings.
For years I have worn exhaustion and busyness like a badge of honor. From my 20s to my late 30s, I wanted to be invited to all the places and parties, trying desperately to erase the awkward shyness of my youth with hard won popularity. I could be completely worn down. on the verge of disease, and I would still squeeze myself into some tiny designer outfit I could barely afford, clip the extensions into my hair, paste eyelashes in place, bind my feet in 4.5 inch stilettos and head out the door. If I didn't have energy, I would down multiple Diet Monsters before making my way into the night.
Now, bedtime is anytime before 10:30. I prefer Kira Grace yoga pants to almost anything, and have traded Blahniks for Vionics. My friends are incredible and soulful. We don't do small talk, only BIG talk, and most of us prefer the comfort of our comforters and a good book to any night out on the town. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy a good menopause event here and there, and spending time in the company of great people. These days, I just prefer many open slots on my dance card. True friendship means the ability to maintain my boundaries and honor those of my friends.
Despite this burgeoning awareness, I don't feel great all the time. Sometimes I feel terribly sad, like I have been stripped naked and laid bare for all to see. At times, I cry for no reason. My purposeful business is like a newborn that never stops crying and I the exhausted mother with bags under her eyes and a bad case of postpartum depression. I'm no longer young, skinny, or glamorous looking, though I love rocking a caftan and big sunglasses (Iris Apfel here I come) and I prefer Netflix to nightlife. I am unwinding. I am tragically human. I am getting to know me. It's only taken 48 years to get here.