What happens when you silence a part of yourself for the “should”?  Like water flowing, it finds a way to reroute itself.  The same is true for our inner selves.  After being a “super-commuter” for several months, 5 days a week, I had it.  I could no longer do it.  I was exhausted, never saw my family and missed most every school program they had.  Although I loved the work and it fit me, the commute did not.  I decided to take a leap with a closer opportunity.  Although there were many red flags with the supervisor and with the organization itself, I once again convinced myself that retirement, security and benefits should rule my decision making and that I could fit any job even if it didn’t fit me.

I resigned from my commute and once again, midway through life, became the new girl.

It was a disaster.

The red flags proved to be right, there was hostility, pettiness and mixed messages from day one.  I was told I wasn’t a good fit on day 3 and on day 5 I left.  DAY 5.  On one hand, I am so glad that I figured this out quick and the damage was pretty minimal. On the other hand, this blow to my ego makes me want to curl up in a fetal position and cry.  I think what I realized is I don’t truly know who I am in midlife.  I don’t know where I fit in and what I want to do.  I have worked all my life but in a more reactionary way: I applied, they accepted, we made it work.  Until we didn’t.  I realized that my old way of rolling with things and changing who I am to please others just isn’t going to help me in the next phase of my life.  Nowadays, there are so many work years that we have.  I am looking at maybe another 20 years in the workforce if not more.

So many articles and books talk of finding yourself.  How do you find yourself amidst family life, money concerns and small towns with limited resources?  How do you find yourself when, as the song says, you didn’t know you were lost?  How do you search for meaning in a world full of connected disconnect?  How do you pick yourself up and dust yourself off when the world around you is buzzing and flying by?  It is the mayhem of the midway.  I am once again off the tracks, looking for meaning in a meaningless space.

Where do we go from here?