Music Muse – Need You Now by Lady Antebellum
Link to music with lyrics – http://youtu.be/4LMgO4JyBp4
How often do we look at our lives thinking that there must be something better out there? The phrase, “The grass is always greener on the other side,” comes up, but I really do not believe that is from where the question comes. At least not for me. We get complacent in our day to day lives – getting up every morning, going to work, coming home, going to bed, only to do the same the very next day. And on weekends? Well, Saturday is spent getting those things done that get neglected during the week. Sundays may start out lazy, but toward late afternoon, we begin the routine of preparing for the next week. Monday morning comes and there we are – same old thing. Oh, occasionally, we step out of the routine and wonder why we don’t do more of this. Sound familiar?
One day, we wake up and realize that we are moving closer to retirement age, and there are so many things left to do that we haven’t even touched upon. We may even look at our partner in life and think that the boredom comes from there and be tempted to just leave it all behind. And some do. Others stay because it’s comfortable even though misery becomes a very best friend. Some make small changes at first allowing the process of change to take its own life. That is the path I chose.
Once gone, pictures of the old life become, as the song says, scattered around the floor as a reminder of what was. And we begin to miss that old life because we have stepped out into the new life. The new life may not look like we thought it would and it may be really uncomfortable. So, we miss it and wonder what would have happened if we had stayed. Missing the old is natural when the new is different and stretches our boundaries. Often, we are confronted with the same old issues that we thought we had left behind.
So, then, what? We look back with pictures of pretty painted memories forgetting that the very issues we left behind are the reasons we left. What we haven’t realized yet is that the issue lies within us and was not external at all. What happened is that we internalized blockages and old thought patterns that we failed to see the roots of the dead tree.
I am the last person to say stay where you are miserable because I left my old life behind and have embarked on an entirely new journey – even making name changes to symbolically leave the old person behind. I am still with the same partner, and it is because of that partner that I had the courage to leave it behind. My new journey is often uncomfortable, and I find myself often missing the old life, but I would not go back at all. I realized that the issues that caused my unhappiness are still with me, and I am working on healing those issues in whatever way I am led. And it is good!
In those dark hours of the morning when I am reminded of old issues and when old demons raise their ugly heads, I catch myself missing the old life and thinking that I want to go back. But when I really look at what that life looked like, I know I made the right decision. The missing-the-old-life-because-it-was-comfortable feeling goes away and the grab-onto-the-new-with-gusto excitement bubbles back to the surface. Those quarter-past-one-miss-you-now thoughts are just ego telling you come on back! Stay on track – listen to your heart – and don’t lose control!
Dancing Naked 