Mystery of Transfiguration

The words lept from the page! Yes ... they summarized that moment in my life!!

"The call rings up the curtain, always, on a mystery of transfiguration. The familiar life horizon has been outgrown; the old concepts, ideals and emotional patterns no longer fit; the time for passing the threshold is at hand." ~~ Joseph Campbell

It was time for me to step out onto the stage of a new life ... to be transfigured. I could stay in my safe, small part of my world ... or I could dare to create a new life, embark on a new adventure, allow myself to be challenged ... only if I would dare ... to step out in faith ... to discard that which would hold me back ... to let go and reach out with empty hands!

"Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus"
~~ Phil 3:13,14

Not Midlife Crisis but rather Midlife Reprioritization

2000 was the year both my daughters left for college. They were excited to learn new things, meet new people, experience independence and learn about themselves! They were entering a new phase of personal growth. With hardly a backward glance, my girls stepped into a new season of life without me, their mother.

2000 was the year I entered a new season of my life. I was excited to learn new things, meet new people and learn about myself! I began to imagine I could be something other than be a mother. I began to hope that God had an extended plan for my life ... maybe he had a purpose for this new season of my life. What did I want to do, where did I want to go, how did I want to live my life?

Those questions led me to Second Acts by Stephen Pollan and Mark Levine ...

Turning Point

August 27, 2000 sizzled!

Dusk was falling as I turned east toward home and my nineteen year old daughter turned west toward college. I was frustrated and exhausted after a Sunday spent dealing with a car breakdown far from home, repacking cars, doing a "dump and run" in my daughter's dorm room and traveling for hours on the interstate. All the "mothering effort" ended with a wave as we parted ways in the middle of nowhere.

Three hours of solitude in my newly repaired car offered time to examine my life. Driving east into the deepening darkness, I knew at home I would be greeted by two cats and a hamster. One daughter was north in college and the second was west in her dorm room ~ and I was all alone.

Alone ~ Solitude ~ Quiet ~ Emptiness

Alone, alone, alone ~~ the word echoed in my mind and my eyes filled with tears. I saw a parade of days stretching before my eyes; days filled with loneliness, quietness, emptiness. Tears overflowed and drifted down my face ... more tears ... and I grieved over an ending in my life.

As the odometer clicked off the miles, I contemplated the incredible change that had occurred that Sunday in August. By the time I turned into my driveway, I saw opportunties in aloneness, possibilities in emptiness and privilege in solitude!!

Thus began my journey into my second adulthood ...