A Curated Life is Overrated.
Have you ever felt like life is so long - bogged in the minutia, trudging through the every day - but also really, really short? You blinked and a decade went by?
41 years ago, on the 26th of July in 1982, my mother and I nearly died as I tried to make my way into the world. One of the first things I remember about being here is swimming in an inflatable pool in a friend's backyard, held up by a unicorn ring floaty.
I remember yabbying with my Dad, and cooking with my mum - we actually had a combustion stove when I was a kid; we had to light the fire every time we wanted to eat. My brothers came along, and I just wanted them to love me as fiercely as I loved them.
And the thing is, all the cliches are true. Every annoying thing that someone older than you has said about the nature of time and age is irritatingly accurate. I feel about as un-cool as I ever have to admit that, but there it is. I've always said I'll tell you the truth.
I still feel like I'm twelve years old, down the front at my first ever concert, arms in the air, voice hoarse, eyes sparkling.
I still feel like I'm fifteen years old, leaning into my first kiss, full of surprise and wonder, under a twilight moon.
I still feel like I'm sixteen, my heart breaking so completely and thoroughly I thought I would shatter into a thousand pieces that could never be brought back together again.
I still feel like I'm at my wedding, eating and dancing, laughing at the miracle that love is; I still feel like I did the day my firstborn made his way out of my body, and my second and my third…
Even though it's almost been a decade, I still feel like I'm only as old as I was when I left my carefully curated life, radically deconstructing my faith and structure of belief, taking a huge left turn from the direction I thought I would head in my whole life long.
And here we are.
This series is about the lessons we learn in the first half of life. I first heard about the idea that there are two halves of life when I read "Falling Upward" By Richard Rohr, freshly torn from the biggest break up of my life: The Church/Western Christianity.
Richard Rohr wrote:
"There are two major tasks in the human spiritual journey. The task of the first half of life is to create a proper container for one's life and answer some central questions. "Who am I?" "What makes me significant?" "How can I support myself?" "Who will go with me?" The task of the second half of life is, quite simply, to find the actual contents that this container was meant to hold and deliver. In other words, the container is for the sake of the contents."
He went on to say:
"The first half of life is discovering the script, and the second half is actually writing it and owning it."
And so here I am, 41 years and 225 days old, and I'm discovering something my inner eighteen-year-old self would be quietly comforted to hear:
Life isn't anywhere near over.
Life is long, this is true. We've been through it, and I'm going to guess that amongst us all who find ourselves here today reading this, we've experienced about as much as life can throw at a human being… Perhaps it feels as though we've lived ten lives up till now.
And also, life is so very short. Heartbreakingly fleeting. It never feels like enough.
This is a paradox that is true: You are always changing, no one stays the same, and you are always you. As we grow and age and gather wisdom, we don't venture further from our True and Essential Self: life is a homecoming, the great return to the Real You and the You are you becoming.
Come along, if you will. Celebrate with me the things that a few years strung together with grace and attention can imprint on a soul, and find your own wisdom on the way.
LISTEN: "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time. After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is." Liz Gilbert.
Liz Milani xo
Instagram: @thepracticeco
From this week’s series titled "The Long and Short Of It" with a subscription in the App. Hope to see you there.
