Hitting Pause

I always knew I wanted a big life, even if I didn't know exactly what that looked like. But I imagined it would have expansive experiences with interesting people in far-flung places. As time passes though, the world starts to feel smaller. One day is indistinguishable from the next. You go to the same places. Do the same things. Make the same meals. Watch the same shows. Life becomes routine, which isn’t all bad, but the stench of sameness starts to linger in the air, and you wonder if this is all that your life is meant to be.  

I am inclined to reflect, and it feels rather pedestrian to say that my fortieth birthday this year was a point of contemplation, but here I am…contemplating. 

When you are young, time feels infinite, so you are careless with it. You hold onto false friends and spend your time on the wrong people and things. For many of us, climbing the corporate ladder seems so important that we put it above our health, relationships and personal interests. And then you sleep your weekends away just to catch up from it all. 

But with time I have realized how brief it all is. How moments pass through you all too quickly and that most of them we aren't even capable of absorbing, because there isn't the time to even feel everything. And that although the days were full, most of it felt like clutter instead of adornments that brought value to the interior walls of my life. 

In my forty years of existence, I had learned how to work, maybe even succeed, but I wasn’t sure I had learned how to live. I never wanted to be one of those people who was always looking back, believing that the best is behind them. And I think the only way to not fall into that trap is to approach your life with curiosity and get out of your comfort zone by creating the moments and experiences that help you do that. 

So, a few months ago I decided to hit pause. I stepped back from my job, and for the first time in my life, I did not immediately dive headlong into the next thing. The time off has felt like a speed bump that forced me to slow down, which is something that I am not all that good at. There has been the space to discover and to ponder, which when you haven’t had the time to explore the labyrinth of your unconscious can be a little unnerving. 

I have also had the opportunity to make my own dreams come true, which for me is traveling. In just a few short months, I have enjoyed excursions in California and visited Hawaii, Massachusetts and Louisiana. I just returned from a month-long trip to Europe, which felt like the study abroad experience I never got to have. 

I am not so naive to say that traveling for a month or two will change your life, but it might open your heart and mind to what is ailing the world. And if you listen long enough, you might figure out what is ailing you. 

In the poem ‘The Summer Day’ Mary Oliver asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I don’t have it all figured out yet, but somehow I know that I am closer to getting the life I want.