It is fairly human, I think, to search unwittingly for symbols - for somewhat tangible (physically, or even mentally) permanent reminders of fundamental events in our lives.
I've thought now for a number of months that the number '37' has been taking shape as such a marker for me.
It is only my age, since last July. So perhaps I'm not very inventive with my meaningful markers. Yet it resonates with me and provides a sharp milestone, a line crossed which takes me into the rest of my life a deeply changed person.
I'm not sure why now. Why this year, and in such an effective progression. I've always been the type to over-analyze myself and definitely focus on improving everything I thought needed improvement, in me. I'm open to my own blind spots and derive satisfaction of molding my own character, and I'm convinced I'm guided by a permanent, real faith, which satisfies me as the ultimate litmus test.
But last summer, maybe - I'm guessing - accentuated by the ending baby stages of Emery's life, when all three of my kids finally needed less than 100% of my energy 100% of the time, something shifted in a rumbling-earth kind of way.
I couldn't, anymore. I couldn't feel 'behind' anymore. I was merely making it through the days, anxious as I woke up, and exhausted as I went to bed. I've disappeared from any family photographs and told myself that shopping for plus-size clothes wasn't the end of the world. My confidence continued to trail my competence, at work. I have been hit broadside in both my marriage and my career in the few years prior, and recovery from these impacts has been excruciatingly difficult. And I finally felt cheated.
Out of life lived out loud. Out of fantastical freedom of not giving a damn about anyone else's take on my life, or my words, or my thoughts, except God alone, with His voice roaring clearly and singularly to me, and for me, above all other noise. Out of crucial life energy that now laid dormant for years. Out of forward force which would dismantle anything in its way to get me to the ultimate, legitimate, inimitable me, created for Love.
I don't remember why I went for a walk that day. Maybe it was as trivial as wanting to give something new a try, anything, to get me out of status quo. July 17, 2016. Midday on a Sunday - I left the house and returned, drained, after three miles. Like a popped glow stick, it felt to me, in a bad metaphor, as if months, if not years, of physical and mental toxins were set free in my body, and I felt ill. I knew how unhealthy I was, then. That first headache lasted all afternoon.
Pathetic as they were, those first minutes and steps would give birth to a breeze, a flutter of hope and a sense of new direction. I was headed into the sabbatical, and I knew I wanted to start something new before I left the office for six weeks. It was getting easier, too, as I was ramping down things at work, to decide to spend (always just one more) time on myself without the usual rigor of excuses about how busy I was.
Looking back now, after seven months, over 600 miles, and four or five half-marathons I did just for me, after a winter - first in a long time - when I lost weight instead of gaining - walking was a major catalyst to confidence. And with confidence, of pushing myself to my own goals and freedom to not compete with anything or anyone than my own old self, came massive - in full fairness, incomprehensible - freedom to know my truth. All of it.
Those hours spent in the dark in the evenings, as my brain churned, have been healing in a way that should carry me forward through the rest of my life. I'm simply no longer afraid.
My choice to stand for myself, to invest in my well-being, have broken open all the truth I have pushed down and out of sight for years.
In the last seven months, I have seen the future I hope for. I have lost my dependency, the choice to not speak up for what I need and for my boundaries, my lack of self-esteem. Nothing I pursue is about arrogance. But the freedom and backbone I sense now are inescapable, and, I hope, fully permanent. I have chosen to see and call myself as strong, and I have seen the response of those who are pulled into my confidence. I have realized the responsibility of leading others into their own strength, and the humility this requires. I have begun to need approval, or even understanding, less; and sincerity and trust, more. I have realized my perceived introversion, all along, was perhaps a way of hiding. And I have become hungry for the variety of deeply human relationships which can be offered once my own walls are removed.
Yes, I have been my own cheerleader throughout, and have learned to fake it until I make it. But as I 'make it', even the need for the pep talk is disappearing slowly. My truth is acquiring an exoskeleton strong enough to withstand scrutiny, to remain open-handed to inquiry & cynicism, and to give of itself at no cost.
I'm hopelessly optimistic and my drive forward are unstoppable. Meaning even I can't halt the forward motion; no matter the delays, the detours, the occasional darkness. I'm not my own but God's and his purpose for me, I know now, is too large, too vast, too staggeringly beautiful to be in any way seized or paused by my frailty or doubt or incompetence or fear. So I jump, and continue jumping, and expect - no, demand - to grow wings on the way down. And for 37 years, this has never failed me - even when failure was all I saw in the moment. I stand free in a dizzying, fierce Love of the true God and, having acknowledged all I have and all I am as first having come from Him, I fear nothing. For the first time, at this scale, in my life. I cannot wait to see the rest of it.