Returning
Notes from the Threshold
It’s a funny thing, reaching an age and thinking you’re supposed to have it all together.
What if it’s actually the opposite?
What if we’re not meant to have things together, but rather to take it all apart?
It wasn’t until I retired my aromatherapy practice last spring, months before my 60th birthday, that it hit me.
Perhaps this is the time to release the old structures, systems, and behaviours that helped me navigate a world where I struggled to fit in.
I’m beginning to see the extent of the disservice I’ve done to myself. All the masks, the trying on of countless identities to push myself into ill-fitting boxes so that I appeared acceptable.
We do this though, don’t we? We get so busy caring for others and doing all that we’ve come to believe we have to that we forget about ourselves.
Until we don’t.
Until something inside us shifts and the fog lifts.
Until we give ourselves permission to remember what it might be like to be … ourselves.
I’ve said that I’ve re-invented myself many times, but often it was another costume. Sometimes through the changing, I surfaced with a piece of myself that I hadn’t known I’d lost. A gem of who I’d always been, tucked into the pocket of this new dress.
I’m sensing that this current reinvention is the most important of all.
The returning to myself.
The gifts of this birthday keep coming. Perhaps the greatest has been to see my path with clearer eyes, and to know that it’s time to dig into my courage in order to set myself free.
I imagine most of us can trace back to our turning points, looking back to see that threshold we were brave enough to step through, crossing into the unknown.
Into the beyond.
Not knowing where the untrodden path led, but knowing we had no alternative but to step through and walk it, altering the arc of our existence.
I remember years of inner work circling to each pivotal point. I thought I’d worked through it all, only to find myself on the next level of that spiral staircase of healing and self-discovery.
Now I recognize that each time I pause, I see fresh opportunities for growth as an unmarked trail appears before me.
It’s not done yet.
Perhaps it’s never done.
Casting our eyes back, we can see how far we’ve come.
We can recognize those moments when the mask came off, and we found ourselves one layer closer to our truth. In the moment we can’t always see it, but glancing back we can — noticing the shed costumes left along the path.
We remember, and in that we can acknowledge the old versions of ourselves that we outgrew and cast off along our way, and thank them for getting us to this point.
I’m pulled from my reverie and see that my dog has got up from her cushion beside me and is standing at the top of the stairs, gazing down into the darkness. In her eyes I sense her thoughts:
What’s there?
What lies beyond?
My breath catches as I feel a spark of recognition. Another threshold beckons.
What lies beyond?
I remember that I’ve done this before. We all have.
I’ve wrestled with fear and crossed into uncertainty before.
I remember how the stepping through expanded my world enough for me to breathe and settle a little deeper into my own becoming.
Perhaps this time I will find the magic of myself waiting.
Tracey, I love that last line. There is magic in the waiting… in not discovering it all right away.
It makes space for those layers of becoming to unfold, and for what’s true to reveal itself in its own time.
I can see myself contemplating this awhile longer in that beautiful forest with the table and chairs. 💛✨
perhaps it is never done....this is I thought I have as well
bless you sister
thank you for your words of wisdom
xo