Write Your Own Story

While doing a bit of reading today, I found a link to Catherine Larose’s Cafe Girl Chronicles blog, by way of an excerpt at the More magazine website. More magazine is aimed at the 40+ age female. I can remember when 40 seemed sort of old to me, then Cher got there and it didn’t seem so old anymore. How could 40 be old when it meant she was able to dress in basically ass-baring outfits on-stage and she lived with a much younger man (they called him “the bagel boy” in the press)? 

I don’t feel old in my middle age and when my friends talk about age, I see that my point of view concerning it may or may not be unique. Inside I feel like the same girl that I’ve always been, but when I look in the mirror, I see small bags under my eyes and I think, “Wow, not a young girl anymore after all…….” 

When I was in my early 20s I wanted to get married and have children and I wanted to do it right now. Right. Now. So, I married a man that I did not know and while that marriage did not work out, it did lead me to the children that I do believe I am meant to live my life with. The thing is, those kids are growing up. My son will always be with me, he’s disabled and unable to live on his own, but my girls, they will move on. Bay is 17. Sarah is 11. How did the time go by so fast?  Should I have accomplished more with them?  Is there still time to get it done?

When I was young, I thought that getting married, that was the end - the Happy Ending. By the time I got to my early 30s, I realized that there is not Happy Ending, that the whole thing – meaning Life – is a continuous journey and the best that I can do it to pick an interesting direction to travel in. I learned to embrace the ideas of flexibility and perspective. If I try to make something happen, if I hold my ground too hard, then I’ll get knocked down. If I’m flexible, if I bend, then I can ride it out.

When I find other people who appear to share this point of view, it’s very exciting to me. I feel that maybe my ideas are not so crazy and if someone else agrees, then perhaps I’m on the right track. Maybe I’m not crazy at all.

Catherine Larose explains it like this…

For me life is like a book. It’s one continuous narrative and the best and only thing you can do is to be the author of your own adventures or misadventures, such as the case maybe.   Write your own script, don’t let someone else write it for you, make a decision (any decision), if it’s the wrong one, you’ll fix it.  Give yourself permission – and don’t let analysis/paralysis rule your life.  Fonce*, as my French friends would say.

Image credit: Bailey Smith