Yesterday, I mentioned how bad home ownership sucks. You know what else sucks?
Getting old, ha.
Every week or so, Brooke asks me about some random bruise on my body. Today, it was my shoulder.
I have no clue how it got there. Probably some tiny bump into a wall or something that turned my entire shoulder a different color.
We joke about how getting old sucks, but if you’ll allow me to be honest (and it’s my blog so I’m going to assume you’re giving me permission), I actually enjoy the late 30’s way better than the late 20’s.
And I’m hopeful I’ll say the same thing with each passing decade.
Because, for me, the mid-30’s were wrought with lots of covered up anxiety, lots of pretending and lots of trying to hold together something that was literally crumbling underneath my feet.
And thankfully, it broke. I made the decisions that led to the breaking, I wasn’t an innocent bystander, but it did break.
In the breaking, it shattered Brooke’s trust, bruised my ego and left me scrambling for solid ground.
But as I’ve done the initial work of recovering who I really am, I’ve found (at times) a settling and peace that I didn’t know was possible.
I’ve mentioned him here before but a good friend of mine turned me on to Richard Rohr. His stuff is really helpful. And profound.
He talks a great deal about the first and second half of life. Not chronologically by age, although sometimes it is. More so, by life events.
More specifically, he suggests we get ushered into the second half of life by suffering not success.
In the bruising of our egos and our identities, what we initially view as tragedy and humiliation, we end up finding great hope.
It’s in the bruising, where we end up finding our true selves actually.
Brooke texted me a few nights ago, basically screaming at me to go check out the sunset as quickly as I could.
The sky was on fire.
She then sent over this picture.
It was a reminder to me that the bruising is beautiful, and it ushers in something far more lasting than the short-term pain.
Even though getting old sucks. 😜
