“This is where your life has arrived,
After all the years of effort and toil;
Look back with graciousness and thanks
On all your great and quiet achievements.
You stand on the shore of new invitation
To open your life to what is left undone;
Let your heart enjoy a different rhythm
When drawn to the wonder of other horizons
Have the courage for a new approach to time;
Allow it to slow until you find freedom
To draw alongside the mystery you hold
And befriend your own beauty of soul.
Now is the time to enjoy your heart’s desire,
To live the dreams you’ve waited for,
To awaken the depths beyond your work
And enter into your infinite source.”
Excerpt From: O’Donohue, John. “To Bless the Space Between Us.”
In the Lakota tribe, people could have several names during their lifetimes. People’s names were adapted during different chapters of their lives to fit their changing characteristics. For example, Chief Sitting Bull was named Jumping Badger as a boy. As people grow and mature over their lifetimes, this naming system makes so much sense.
My retirement has been such a radical change in life that I think I need a new name. I was working for thirty-three years in a row, day in and day out. Then one Monday, I did not go back to work, after cleaning my office out on the Friday before that. I wanted to stay out of my successor’s hair; I simply did not go back at all. My husband and I cleaned out our rented storage unit and we moved “our stuff” to our retirement home in Hawaii to stay for three months. Poof…a new life. However, I do not know what my new name will be. It is too soon to know. (If you want to know about the struggles of this, read the earlier posts!)
For now, I know what is giving my life meaning: loving my husband and our dog, absorbing Beauty with Akua (the Hawaiian word for God), writing to share what I have learned in my vocation, making new friends, recovering from an accident and getting back into triathlon shape. This is where my life has arrived. I am truly grateful.