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[wlotus]

I believe it is quite normal to question things and re-examine one's path at pivotal stages of life. The forty-something years are one of those stages. I am getting close to the age where I will not have as many years in front of me as I have behind me. Right now i can still double my age and see living to that number of years. That won't be

Comments

[muse]

I feel you. My mother really admires Grandma Moses, who got her stuff working much later in life. When I last visited my mother, she said to me, "I always knew I'd bloom much later in life, that my last years would be the best." When I feel like you describe, I think of that.

[wlotus]

I like stories of women who build a new life for themselves or nurture a new passion later in life. Over the past couple of years, when I was unemployed or underemployed, I met women who had retired from or left one career to start an unrelated one in their 40s and beyond. I held onto those stories as proof that I can do it, too.

[audrabaudra]

You/we/I/any of us could still be in a version of our lives that was incorrect for us.

I, for one, have made huge, gargantuan mistakes that will never be undone. I will never forgive myself for them; the forgiving is for others to find in themselves, no matter how unworthy I am.

The only way that I've found to reach peace of mind is to say that this is the way that it is. This is the manner in which my circumstances exist. They will change. The results from them will alter over time. I must accept matters that I can't change or alter now, but I must also learn my lessons and never make the same mistakes again.

Back to where I began: You/we/I/any of us could still be in a version of our lives that was incorrect for us. THAT would be the only wrong in living life.

[wlotus]

That viewpoint seems healthier than either denying that we've made any mistakes at all or beating ourselves up for having made mistakes in the first place.

The difficult part for many people, I've noticed, is graciously facing the reality of how our mistakes may have affected others. It is very hard for me to hear how my behavior inadvertently hurt someone else, and it seems to be hard for other people, as well. (Hence the attitude, "That is over with; there is no need to keep bringing it up! You need to move on!" that I've heard from others when folks who were hurt by their behavior mention the pain in their attempts to gradually process it.) I don't usually respond graciously in those situations, though I am getting better than I used to be.

[audrabaudra]

I have a friend who's battled narcotics and alcohol addiction for as long as I've known him. There's a reason that one of the first actions in a 12-step program is accounting for how one's actions, even actions that were driven by addiction, have affected other people