When Dominos Fall

When someone asked who I am, I used to answer all the things I did.  I am a mom, an accountant, wife of a military man, but, as wonderful as those roles are, they aren’t who I am.  A few years ago I lost my identity, or what I had thought was my identity.  No, it was not a hacker stealing my information and pretending to be me.  I entered the world of empty nest.  I remember talking about all the things I’d do once the kids were launched and managing their own lives.  I’m sure every parent understands that feeling.  But reality of empty nest is much different that the dreams.  Utopia, it is not.

At first life was a lot of fun.  I trained for a marathon with a bunch of girlfriends, played bunko, learned to scuba dive, took classes, wrote, traveled, bought a sports car and really burned the candle at both ends.  Not a healthy way to live, seriously.  I drank too much, ate too little, trained too much, and slept only a little all while managing a full time job as a senior accountant.  Not surprisingly, I got sick.  Even during the shock of the illness (I had never gotten sick), I still kept trying to go, go, go trying to fill the hole in my life that I didn’t realize was there.  I didn’t listen to the universe, my body or people around me who could see me deteriorating.   The dominos started to fall.

I eventually left my job.  I couldn’t focus or concentrate enough to do the work, just couldn’t connect with it at all, and I asked if I could retire early.  Fortunately, my bosses were super understanding.  I’m sure they could see that I was in a bad place.

Shortly after I retired I lost my fitness level due to injury.  If nothing else, I was the person people looked to for fitness.  There wasn’t a race I wouldn’t try, a hike I wouldn’t do or a boot camp I didn’t master.  And now I lost that, too. 

What I didn’t realize was that I had lost my joy.  Feeling so disconnected from everything was something new to me. None of my usual tricks for snapping myself back worked.  I wanted my WOW back.  I’ve tried rekindling some of the fires of things that once gave me joy, but they fizzled out pretty fast.

Now I’m on a search looking for what I want to do now.  Where do I go from here?  Work? School? Workshops? Classes? Reinventing me and learning that the roles I play in life are not who I am is an interesting voyage.

I think the hardest part, other than losing my identity as a mom, an accountant, a marathoner, a happily busy lady, was watching people leave my life.  People I had shown up for at anytime day or night didn’t want anything to do with me.  That hurt a lot.  One dumped me when I was having back problems and couldn’t drive.  She said I was making it up.

However, there are blessings in it.  The friends I have now are true, not just fair weather friends, and what a joy that is!  The feeling of being a blank slate is uncomfortable, but I pray for God to show me what my new purpose is, where my new path is.  In the meantime, I will just keep doing the next right thing.  I know joy is just around the next corner. 

Have you ever experienced this feeling?  Have you ever lost your joy?  What did you do when the dominos fell?