“People may call what happens at midlife “a crisis”, but it’s not. It’s an unravelling- a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you’re “supposed” to live. The unravelling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are.” – Brené Brown
I believe that I truly started “unravelling” when I turned 40 and the Great Recession started the ball rolling for me, in a big way. Unravelling can be painful, but it can also be so liberating. And it’s funny, we sometimes smugly think that we get to a point of being completely “unravelled”, but then we realize that we still get all tangled and tied up in knots, reminding us that we still have a long ways to go.
Our middle son is in medical school, and we were Facetiming with him last night. He is currently working and learning in the Crisis Trauma Unit in a major hospital in a major city in our country. He has seen and witnessed more in a few weeks than I hope to ever experience in my lifetime. (Those of you who are in the medical arts, thank you for heeding your calling. Thank you for putting your incredible talents towards the healing of others. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.) I asked our son last night if anything really unnerved him the most about his experience. Was there anything that really gave him pause, more than anything else that he had experienced? He told me that it was surreal to see a patient die who had been all “done up” for the day. Their makeup was in place, and their nails were freshly done. It struck him deeply that they had no idea that this would be their last day alive on Earth.
Maybe we are all just balls of yarn, unravelling. We will unravel until we come to the end of our own line of string. Our string gets intertwined and tangled up with others, throughout the days of our own unravelling, making patterns and connections, and then sometimes it rolls on, in a line, all by itself. We have no idea when or where our own ball of string ends, so we may as well enjoy our own unravelling. We may as well get all made up, get a manicure, and roll on with our days with purpose and curiosity and gusto, until one day, much to our own surprise, we reach the end of our string. We are completely unravelled. We are no longer twisted in knots. Our own unique line has been added to the blanket of Life. And we are free.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
2319. Do you prefer vertical or horizontal stripes?
Oh wow. Just wow. That comment by your son about the woman who was all made up for the day? It made me tear up. None of us knows, do we? Cheers to unravelling your entire spool before the thread gets cut.
Good morning.
Thank you, Gail. <3 For everything that our son has witnessed in a major city's trauma unit, I have to admit that his answer sort of surprised me. We must just keep rolling along . . . .