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I recently met a man who is exactly my age, and has a 19-year-old daughter. It set me to pondering things I’m not readily able to articulate, about the differences in lifepaths and how profoundly one life can vary from the next, even within one culture and era.
At 21 he was a father raising an infant. At 21 I was student doing acid and performance art. At 40 he is the divorced father of three with monumental responsibilities and weights upon him. At 40 I am a feather in the wind, with a rare freedom few will ever know, yet without an emotional home ground. He will probably be a grandfather in a few years. I am not yet a mother. He knows exactly what his life will be like in 10 years. I do not.
I am having a “something is missing” day. While I am grateful for my life and the near-absolute liberty that has come to be a hallmark of this lifetime, part of me knows there is something absent, something concrete that I can’t clearly identify. Whatever it is, it is within me, not from an external source. Something in me needs to come out, but I don’t have clarity as to what it is.
Some people’s mission in life, their reason for having been placed in the world, is defined for them at a very early age. Others find it of their own accord early in life, or late. Others never do, and die without knowing why they were here. I’ve never believed that I could be one of those, the lost ones without an identifiable reason for having been born. Yet it feels late. It feels like the deep autumn of my life, pondering where within me lies the key to that mission. By whom in this world am I needed, and in what capacity? We are, I believe, sent into this world with something in us that we must contribute, and want to contribute. Where is that inside me?
That’s what I still don’t know.
At 21 he was a father raising an infant. At 21 I was student doing acid and performance art. At 40 he is the divorced father of three with monumental responsibilities and weights upon him. At 40 I am a feather in the wind, with a rare freedom few will ever know, yet without an emotional home ground. He will probably be a grandfather in a few years. I am not yet a mother. He knows exactly what his life will be like in 10 years. I do not.
I am having a “something is missing” day. While I am grateful for my life and the near-absolute liberty that has come to be a hallmark of this lifetime, part of me knows there is something absent, something concrete that I can’t clearly identify. Whatever it is, it is within me, not from an external source. Something in me needs to come out, but I don’t have clarity as to what it is.
Some people’s mission in life, their reason for having been placed in the world, is defined for them at a very early age. Others find it of their own accord early in life, or late. Others never do, and die without knowing why they were here. I’ve never believed that I could be one of those, the lost ones without an identifiable reason for having been born. Yet it feels late. It feels like the deep autumn of my life, pondering where within me lies the key to that mission. By whom in this world am I needed, and in what capacity? We are, I believe, sent into this world with something in us that we must contribute, and want to contribute. Where is that inside me?
That’s what I still don’t know.