Life Passages and Thresholds

While waxing philosophical with my oldest grandson, Hayes, about life passages and thresholds, I told him that I had recently passed through another myself that was something of an epiphany. 

I confessed to him that I had been a peculiar kid and was an accomplished daydreamer at an early age. In fact, the only time I can recall my mother openly expressing pride in me was when my forth grade teacher wrote on my report card that ‘April daydreams too much’ which incensed my mother  who then shot a note back to him that “April will do things that others will only wish they could do.” 

Whether or not that turned out to be true, it did plant a seed in me, even though it didn’t mean that the world would notice or care. There is a difference between being and being recognized as being. I’ve managed to stay reasonably invisible to the world for 73 years and being INTJ I have preferred it that way. I have operated under the radar so I could be free to pursue dozens of interests rather than being boxed in or limited by credentials or the expectations of an often fickle, ever changing world view. 

Where I am now, though, having rapidly passed through more thresholds in recent years, adjusting to being forced to give up so many of the things I know how to do because of aging joints and mind, I see that I have come full circle to that daydreamer child who observed others so she could imagine their lives, their feelings, thoughts and points of view. … The kid who then took those observations and wrote poems, stories, and drew pictures, all of which were then stuffed in the bottom of her sock drawer never to be seen by anyone else.

…The imagineer who played and pretended by herself mostly, because she didn’t need others to help her live in her created world and who understood and accepted that no one would get her anyway. 

That person is me again, albeit in a different way but still finding satisfaction in just creating with no plan or goal in mind. No obligation to be critiqued, ranked or marketable. No reason to do other than to satisfy a curiosity, a desire to make something from nothing or solve a problem and just be with no need for recognition, praise or acclamation. …To just run amuck with an inspiration having no boundaries. 

Is it possible I have finally embraced the art of retirement?

I am compelled to reveal all this because there is a more important take away from this truncated biography that might lend a bit of new perspective for someone else.

My faith and personal relationship with Christ is so deeply embedded in me that I often forget to share with others that everything I do and don’t do is ultimately for Him, not me, anyway. Since I abhor being preached to by those who can’t get their own lives together or make wise choices for themselves, I tend to go the other way and not speak aloud what I refer to as knowing-the-letter-but-not-the-spirit “God Words”. So, I regret that I neglected to tell Hayes the rest and point of this topic, i.e., that everything I am, or ever tried to be, has never been for me, per se, except when I was younger and less mature in the spirit.

There have been times when, in my childish flesh, I have felt so invisible and unremarkable that I thought perhaps I should just give up and stop doing/creating because my efforts seemed to be pointless. But when you have survived the most important, sometimes painfully introspective, life passages that grow your wisdom quotient, you find that you are often muted because you know that no one else, who is not yet there, would understand anyway - a condition I am fully accustomed to, as it turns out, and why I forget to share. 

In a petty, self-focused, foggy moment, recently, I told God that I was tired of writing and not being read, speaking and not being heard, and doing and not being seen.

And then, as He always speaks to me in the shortest number of words, He replied, “But I do.”  

“Oh,” I humbly understood.

For Him,

Meema