The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl- Volume 57:
The Second Half of Life is a Lonely Place
I am in a new phase of my life: a phase where I feel good in my own skin, whole and have moved past my past. In the book “Falling Upward” Richard Rohr says there are two halves of life. In the second half, which we often see as a time of decline, is actually a time of reaching our full potential and giving in abundance. To get to the second half you have to go through the loss, pain and suffering of the first half of life until you realize the things you have built up around you are not needed. Not everyone makes it to this second phase. In this second phase, I have noticed that people either clear me out of their life or say hurtful things to me and I have also been clearing people out of mine. I know it has nothing to do with my faults or flaws (even though I have those). It has everything to do with the fact that I am authentic, whole, healthy and confident. What I am learning is that this scares and intimidates people and seems to do so even more now that I have a disability. The second phase of life, therefore, is a lonelier place. The why of it and how I will use this phase to become more empowered are the focus of this blog.
My WTF of the week is actually the craziness that was January. It began with the sudden exit of the man I thought was my life partner (more on that in next week’s blog), and included a fall while running, my mom in the hospital, a very anxious and angry child and ended with a shocking revelation that confirmed my suspicions a person who I thought was decent was actually dysfunctional to the core. January was both a clearing out and a wakeup call, and it almost broke me. Thank God it is over and I am hoping this month and this year is one of reinvention and transformation.
This week I can’t get enough of stem cells. The first stem cell trial for the retina is soon to be underway and they found no adverse effects of the cells on the retina in two test subjects. It is still in its early stages and expensive to be treated, but for me it signals the jump from animal to human trials and that is one step closer to me getting some sight back.
I have worked hard to be where I am emotionally. I have been through hard times and traumatic events, through pain and hopelessness. But in the past years I have done the work to heal myself and make myself whole. Doing that work was not easy, but it has led me to a new phase of my life. In this new phase, especially since my accident, I am open, willing to take risks and truly say what I mean and mean what I say. I have hard times but I overcome them.
As I have become stronger, people have left my life. Recently one of my closest friends said to me that I was intimidating to many people because I defied their expectations. My positive attitude and my ability to be successful and happy in the face of my challenges scares people who expect to see me bitter or sad or not able to hold it together. “You make it seem effortless”, she said, and that is truly intimidating. What is interesting is that it is not at all effortless. Every day is challenging, every day is hard. I have just learned how to figure out how to be my best self in spite of the challenges I face and I have also learned how to fake it when I need to.
Another interesting thing is that people who are not whole or who are struggling with their own self-worth or negative self-image either feed off my positive energy (until they realize they need to do the work to make themselves happy) or feel somehow threatened by my confidence. While I have bad days and sad days and angry days, through it I have a strong sense of myself and I am confident in my abilities. Recently I have had people make comments about my blindness that have surprised me. They will say things like “why are we asking the blind girl what size that is” or “I did not know you could take pictures” or a general statement about what I should not be able to do. Again, I defy what people expect and that somehow makes people uncomfortable. And even in jest, calling me the blind girl is an example of “when you label me, you negate me” in action.
In this second phase of my life it still hurts or angers me when people exit my life or make comments to somehow make me “less than” or place obstacles in my way to see if I will stumble. But, it is through that hurt and pain that I become empowered to do better and greater things. It is what propels me to take the risks I take and challenge myself in new ways. This year I will write my book, sing and drum with a band, complete some 10K races and a triathlon and dance with an adult contemporary dance troop, even though I have no formal training in dancing. And if I don’t do all that this year, then I will do some things next year. And if I fail in those things, so be it, at least I tried!
I am in a great place, even though things around me are sometimes terrible and tragic. In that place I am open to all possibilities and not knowing the next steps of my life is not really scary at all, but exciting. I can create what I want or just let the Universe do its work. And it mostly does not feel scary being alone although I do wish there were more people in my life who I could have deep conversations with who are moving toward wholeness and authenticity and have integrity. One of the affirmations I am doing right now is allowing my need for integrity and authenticity to be met. For now I have a small circle of those I trust and that is fine. And I know that I am a force of nature and I can be unstoppable, and for that I do not apologize. It was a long and hard road to get here and I am not going back. Onward and upward!
Keep Moving Forward,
Beth (BLOVI) Medlock
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