Being an adult can be difficult. There are responsibilities and deadlines and lot of stuff to do that just isn’t so much fun. But very, very rarely do I ever wish to be any time or any place other than where I am right at this moment. Because for all it’s busy and crazy and ridiculousness, my hours are punctuated with moments that are so full of absolute joy that they make my heart sing. Momastery calls them Kairos moments. I couldn’t say it better myself.
But every now and again, I’ll get a longing so intense for a previous time or place that my heart actually hurts for it. Lost in the joy of the present, I’ll find myself grieving for a past that will never come again.
One such moment was this weekend.
I was killing time Saturday morning when I came across a YouTube video of the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas. There’s no real reason that song should remind me of college. It was out two decades before I reached Milwaukee and its lyrics don’t represent a single feeling I had during that time, but instantly it brought me to the streets of Milwaukee, surrounded by all the buildings and people and possibility. It just sounded like that place and that time.
The first time I heard a song that sounded like Milwaukee was during my freshman year at Marquette. I was working in the annual fund office one Friday afternoon all by myself, my desk overlooking downtown as I stuffed envelopes to be sent to alumni. And a song came on – “Rainy Days and Mondays”. I remember feeling it inside of me. I remember feeling the melancholy and the soul of the city deep within me. It just felt like a fit. Closing my eyes and letting the melody flow over me was like walking the streets of Wisconsin Avenue. You can call me crazy. I probably am. But some songs just feel like Milwaukee.
Milwaukee is more than a city to me. To me it represents who I was at the very time I was starting to become. It was my first steps towards my future. It’s where I first allowed my soul to be who I wanted to become. It’s one time I felt like I knew who I was. And I had plenty of time to be me. I was in college. What else did I have to do?
And surely I would never choose to go back to that time for very long. As much as my memories are rosy and golden hued, it wasn’t perfect. I was constantly afraid. Afraid of who I was, afraid of where my future might lead, afraid of making mistakes, absolutely terrified of being alone.
But all of that is a part of me. I’m no longer the silly little girl who always wore her hair pulled back and a turtle neck because she thought it was romantic. I’m no loner the girl who wore all grey half the time because it reminded her of the city she fell in love with as she discovered herself. I no longer cry at the first snow flakes of winter and rarely do I squeal with joy.
But oh how so badly I want to be some days.
These days I’m busy and frenzied and haggard. Oftentimes I more feel like I’m filling a role than living a life. Who I am gets lost in the shuffle of all I have to do and accomplish. But that silly little overly emotional girl is in there still and sometimes she wants to get free.
And perhaps that’s one of the great journies we go through in life – trying to reconcile who we once were with who we are and who we want to become all the while trying to reconcile all of our responsibilities with our soul’s desire to be free.
I’ve decided that I’m not saying goodby to that girl. To do so would be to say goodbye forever to me, to fully allow myself to be overtaken by my roles and responsibilities.
No. What that moment reminded me was that what I need to allow myself more of is time to be me. I need time to strip away the roles and throw off the hats. I need time to myself when I’m not so exhausted that all I can do is flip on Dancing with the Stars.
Never again will I be as free as I was during those four years, and never again do I have to be. I have found who I am. I don’t need endless hours searching and I surely don’t need endless Happy Hours and After Hours. All I need is just a few moments to sit and breathe. To be. To be me.
“And perhaps that’s one of the great journies we go through in life – trying to reconcile who we once were with who we are and who we want to become all the while trying to reconcile all of our responsibilities with our soul’s desire to be free.”
Well if that doesn’t perfectly state the issue of midlife, I don’t know what does. There’s just so much “reconciling” to be done! I wonder if the elderly have to do even more reconciling, or if at some point you simply reach peace and acceptance?