[note: i wrote this in early june but didn’t post it until key people heard it first from me.]

some people have joked with me through the years—after any particularly dramatic haircut/color or major life change, including my 2006 coming out: “Uh-oh, is this a mid-life crisis?”

Each time, i’ve replied, “Probably not—well, i hope not.”

through the years, i have changed, grown—evolved, even. sometimes this change was borne out of crisis, but mostly it’s come from simply fumbling through my life. the chief “turning point” in my life was admitting to myself that i was gay and [eventually] accepting it. being “open” to the Universe and what it had (has) to teach me has only accelerated this evolution. now, almost eight years post-coming out, i am facing another one of those transformative moments in my life.

i am calling it my mid-life awakening.

in a blog i wrote in September 2010 after a long visit to California, i posed this challenge to myself:

maintain the status quo

or

move forward with the momentum i discern

…?

the Universe was not ready then—even though i thought it was; yet the uneasiness, the restlessness, the longing persisted.

so here i am: June 2014.
not in a crisis.
but branching out, taking a chance.

(i wonder if this is what it’s like for a young person when he leaves the nest and goes out into the world, leaving what’s familiar, braving a “new world”…? i certainly don’t know; i never did that.)

so here goes! grounded in what i’ve been raised to do—providing for whom i’m responsible, doing for and serving others—i branch out, preparing to leave behind an almost 26-year career to [__________________________]*.

opening my arms to the Universe and to what my instinct—yea, my spirit—tells me, and with the patience and support and prayers of those who surround me, i welcome the opportunity to try something new, to gain more knowledge about myself and my world, to see what i can do in the “second half(ish)” of my life.

[note: despite some colossal flubs, the “first half” has been great. i won’t say that i didn’t make a difference in the world already—no parent, no one who has loved and been loved deeply can say that. but now it’s time for a new tack.]

i’m ready to forge out the remainder of my legacy in whatever lies “beyond mid-life.”

i don’t know what that is.
but i can’t wait to find out.

________________
* to be determined.