Become the Phoenix

I talked in my last post about being afraid to make choices and changes in our lives. And now I want to talk about an unfortunate side effect of living our lives in fear and stasis. The inevitable moment when the Universe makes the changes for you. If we refuse to change and grow for long enough, you will get a wake up call one day. Maybe more than one. And changes will just happen. You can’t stop them. But is everything lost? Or is it only a new beginning?

I was a prime example of a person living life in a bubble of safe choices. Which meant no choices really. I just existed. Life went on, day after day, exactly the same. Same job, same people, same routine, same bitter emptiness. I was miserable in my life. Unfulfilled. I yearned for better and more and different. One would say I spent my entire life dreaming of this potential happiness I could achieve. Maybe one day? I’m not sure when I thought a magic moment would happen, but I just assumed it would. 

The stars would align and suddenly my life would just fall into place and happiness would result. But what was I doing to achieve that goal except dreaming of ‘one day’? Nothing, I was literally doing nothing at all to better my life. Except numb the pain with outside help. Forget the pain. Don’t fix it. No, that’s too hard. It’s easier to block it out. And you tell yourself you’re totally fine like that. It’s all good. 

But you know it’s a lie. All you really do is lie to yourself and everyone else. And nothing changes. You just keep repeating the same cycle day after day. Get mad because you aren’t happy with your life. Get sad because you feel helpless. Numb the sadness. Forget the sadness for tonight. Lather, rinse, repeat. Over and over. And just because you live to see another day, doesn’t mean you’re really LIVING. You are surviving. That’s it. And you fool yourself into believing that IS life. But you haven’t even scratched the surface yet. 

Because guess what? Those changes are still gonna come, whether you’re ready or not. And that’s when you see what life really is. 

I got to a point in my life where one by one, I lost everyone and everything. My long standing career was gone, my mentor was gone, my livelihood was gone. Then I lost my marriage and my mother and most of my extended family. All of them gone within months of each other. I lost friends. I eventually lost my home I’d known for all my adult life. I had nothing left. And not a single one of those choices were made by me. Life itself made those choices. Those drastic terrible changes. I refused to do a single thing for almost 20 years, so it was all done for me. Ripped right out from under me. No warning. 

I felt like that guy on CSI Miami who was always walking away from explosions every episode. My life was a series of bombs going off around me, destroying every single thing in it’s path. Except me. I was still standing in all that rubble. I had nothing left. No one left. How am I still here?

And you know what? After a time, I didn’t even realize what I’d gone through. Not until I actually told someone else what I experienced. And that person said I was the strongest person they’d ever met. And how could I even function anymore? And I just told them, “What other choice do I have?” Even at my lowest point, it never occurred to me I had any other options but to survive. 

That’s when a light went on for me. All those years I feared any little change at all, because what if I can’t survive a wrong choice? What if I end up alone? What if no one supports me? What if I lose it all? What if? What if? What if? That was my whole life. 

But I found out what would happen if I lost it all. Or if I was alone. Or if had nothing left. I survived! I am still here. It did not kill me. I am alive. Worse for wear, yes. But alive. 

And there I was standing in a pile of rubble that once was my life. I could cry over what I lost. And I did. But once the tears stopped, I had another revelation. Yes my life had been destroyed to ashes. But that only meant I could literally start over again from the ground up, and build a better life than the one I had. The one I hated in the first place. The life I wanted to change, but was too paralyzed to try. Well the slate was blank now. I could do whatever I wanted. And be whoever I wanted. 

Instead of feeling alone in the world in a despairing manner, I started to look at things from a different perspective. For the first time in my life, I am FREE. Yes I am alone, but that means not a single soul on earth can tell me what to do with myself. My choices, my life. I’m on my own now. Nobody is left to tell me how to be, and how to act and how to feel. There is only ME. 

And wow, that is an amazing feeling to OWN your life. And it’s a feeling I never would have known if it hadn’t been forced upon me. And it helped me transform myself into who I am now. And this person is nothing like the woman who came before. This person remembers who she is now. It took the dead quiet of utter loneliness and isolation to stir the memories of the girl I once was before life and everyone around me, told me who I was supposed to be. 

And guess what? That person was never really me. I locked her away a long time ago and I thought I threw away that key. I wasn’t even aware there was a key that could open it anymore. But that key was hidden inside me the whole time. I had to lose everything in order to find myself again. 

So sometimes when life hits you the hardest, and breaks you down to the point you feel like nothing but a pile of ashes with a heartbeat, that’s when the phoenix rises again. Better, stronger, and more beautiful than ever. 

You are the phoenix, and from ashes you too can rise.