Have you ever had one of those huge life experiences, an event or an epiphany that not only changes your path, but completely re-maps your entire personality?
I had one recently, and only with that beautiful thing called hindsight can I now see it was so desperately needed.
I’ll explain.
I was only content when I was busy. Setting a blowtorch to both ends of the candle of life was my happy place, thriving on flying frantically through life in a vain attempt to have it all, and always adding to my To Do list until I could paper my walls with the remnants.
Want the perfect house? Let’s renovate.
The perfect body? Not likely, but I’ll squeeze in 4 brutal sessions a week at the gym anyway.
Well rounded kids? Sure, activities, play dates and toddler soccer present and correct.
Full time career? Absolutely, 50 hours a week at the office dedicated to a life in publishing.
Social life? Sure, I’d love to come to brunch, and of course I can whip up a BBQ for 20 on a Sunday afternoon.
Still not fulfilled? No, so let’s start up a new venture to fulfill the dreams of independent business woman.
I’m a child of the eighties. I can have everything. Right?
Then I suffered a series of miscarriages and was forced to take a stern look at why my embryos were taking a leap off the ledge so determinedly at such an innocent age.
At this point I realised I had been racing through life faster than a rabbit on rollerskates. I would fly into a room breathless and wonder why everyone stared at me with slight trepidation. Sentences were spoken with such haste I never really finished them. Emails, phone calls and conversations were all exchanged like I was a 90’s raver on speed. Every part of my personality was set on overdrive and burning faster than a supernova.
The health boffins very wisely said enough was enough, and I was forced to stop, and choose. Not just slow down a little, but actually stop the whirlwind if I ever wanted another baby. Maybe the lifestyle had nothing to do with the losses, maybe it had everything to do with it. That fact I’ll never know. But it wasn’t a risk worth taking anymore. So after the realisation struck home, and with the squealing handbrake still resonating in my ears, I began the very hard process of completely re-wiring my personality to behave differently, to think differently, and to believe differently.
It’s an almost impossible thing to achieve straight away, a journey something akin to giving up smoking, something which I also achieved about 7 years ago. But already I’ve learned to talk slower, walk slower, breathe slower, and to gaze at the sky for no reason other than simply to look up.
Will it last? Who knows, maybe eventually I’ll fall off the zen wagon and bolt for the nearest font of chaos I can find. Maybe you can’t completely give up the frantic addiction. But until that happens, I’ll keep breathing, counting to ten, and appreciating the boredom.
But aside from the lifestyle change, the embracing of the new zen-me and the echo of whale music as I pass through my day, there was a bigger demon to slay. And that epiphany happened the moment I accepted to settle for less.
The renovations will not be finished anytime soon.
The body will always be wobbly, and likely to get wobblier.
The career is unlikely to advance anytime soon.
And all that is perfectly OK, because what I have achieved is good enough.
And for any stubborn lingering remnants of over-achievement that insist on hanging around?
Well, they are very swiftly swept away on the tailwind of the long awaited news that baby #2 is safely on the way.
It’s bloody hard to accept that you can’t have it all. But at the end of the day, did I really want it all anyway?
