The Key to the Door at 51

I think/feel like I am finally an adult - at the ripe young(old?) age of 51!

Until a couple of years ago, I still felt like I was 17 on the inside... that I was faking/bluffing my way through life and that I'd be caught out soon!  And it was always such a puzzling experience to see the face and body in the mirror that didn't match up with the felt/mental/emotional sense of self...

I would never have believed anyone who told me my life would be like it is today - never in a million years.  I thought I'd still be married to my first husband, watching the grown kids produce their offspring, sitting by the fire like Derby and Joan.  In fact, close friends cried when I left that relationship because it seemed so 'perfect' from the outside (think they cried because when I stopped pretending that it was working for us, they realised they were in deep s**t!!!).

And now here I am with three grown kids far away and a 6.5 year old from a second brief relationship, in a new country, and I think - how the heck did I get here?

I was joking with women friends the other day that I wanted my life back... that I closed my eyes for a second and it kinda slipped off into another dimension... could just see it sliding by... Was joking that I wanted to tell the universe that OK, enough's enough, can I have it back now please!!! They too have a lot of very 'out of the so-called norm' stuff happening in their lives and also want to know what happened in those few moments when they took their eye off the ball...

BUT... if I leave off attaching descriptors like 'good' and 'bad' to the experience, its been the most amazing journey... 

I'm into looking at things on multiple levels and there's so much going on in terms of it being an exploration of human archetypes, of the mythic process ... 

I've learned so much about myself and I see so much interconnectedness and meaning that while some of it is/has been very hard, its also very fulfilling... and I cant imagine my life having meaning any other way... and I am finally living who I really am...

No idea where this is going and how its all going to end up... have given up the need to plan and control and have almost lost the fear - well, on some days anyway!    For the reward of the experience, I couldn't have  planned it any better if  I had tried anyway...