"Say it!" One of my favorite poems and now, prompts. I thought losing my ambition was a disaster. I left my stressful career for a quiet, creative life. Despite building and living the very life I'd dreamed of, it wasnt enough. I thought I needed to BE successful, to strive, to shine in society's idea of a spotlight. Without my ambition, I feared "they" would think I'd gone out to pasture (age 56 at the time). I scrambled to be something I wasn't and create a new career I didn't want, making myself miserable. It’s an oversimplification to say, "then I woke up", but I did. When I stopped trying to conjure the ambition that left me long ago, I returned to myself. ❤️☘️
Thank you, Catherine, for sharing your journey from outward success to inward fulfillment. Such a great example of losing what wasn’t worth having in the first place. :)
Losing an 18-year marriage, one fraught with abuse and so, so much turmoil, was actually the best thing that ever happened to me. I remember telling my therapist I didn't feel like the pain would ever end. And she told me that it would pass, that one day I'd remember that moment and realize that not only did the pain subside, but that I would emerge from the ashes stronger, more resilient, and more ME than I had been in 20 years.
She was right. If I hadn't gone through my now ex-husband's cheating and the divorce, I wouldn't have been forced to take a long, hard look at my life, to examine what was important to me, what was no longer serving me, and make the choices necessary to create a life that I wanted - and no one else.
That loss led to an amazing transformation of my life.
Thank you for sharing this, Melissa! Such an important reminder that what we think is so important to us can be holding us back from realizing our own dreams.
Lossing my child to young adulthood was the hardest. I still miss that little girl in dress up clothes with yogurt on her face, and also it is a gift, getting to be on this journey with her as she finds her way. She will be 25 soon.
My other great loss was alcohol. Nearly 10 years later the gifts of recovery keep on coming.
Thank you for sharing, Sarelle! Parenthood is one of the best examples of a tremendous loss (or series of them, really) that is also such an incredible gift. Like you, I miss the little girl my daugther was. But what an amazing young woman she had become!
After nearly 21 years of marriage, the rug was abruptly pulled out from under me. The details are still harrowing to me, but suffice it to say it involved a raid on my home by law enforcement and my now-ex going to prison. I lost everything. Or so it seemed. Truth is, it was never a good marriage, I was isolated from my family and friends and manipulated on a daily basis. While I wouldn't have chosen such a traumatic end to it, I've come to realize that I may never have left on my own had things not blown up like they did. I was that beaten down. Now, I am slowly rediscovering who I am and how to live life on my own terms.
Lisa, this also happened to me. I'm coming up on 2 years from the day our home was invaded and my world began to crumble and disintegrate. Now alone, I am free to rebuild my life and my self worth while untangling my identity from a person who I'm not sure I ever knew. A serial people pleaser, for the first time I am living for myself. Some days it is exhilarating and some it is the opposite, but I feel the tide rising each time I'm dashed on the rocks with grief. I know my feet will find dry land, even as I struggle to believe it is there. Thank you for commenting.
The phrase you used, "untangling my identity," is so spot on. It's been a bit over 4 years for me and I can honestly say, I have more good days than bad at this point. I am so sorry for the pain you are dealing with. Please feel free to reach out to me any time - I would not be where I am if it weren't for other women who have consistently supported me and reminded me that it is okay to struggle, as long as we don't give up.
I’ve had to move house 3 times in 15 years, for reasons beyond my control. This is not the norm in my peer group. I’ve discovered that the perceived loss is actually a doorway to growth, new experiences and a joy I’d not have found if I had remained where I was (ie, the path of least resistance). It’s a pain in the ass to move, and very expensive, so I would not have undertaken it if not for circumstances.
I thought I lost the opportunity to have a normal life or a normal family, with my three daughters. It turns out that our culture normalizes the wrong things.
It turns out that my twins birth three months early with significant disabilities was a tremendous loss only because the world told me they were not normal and we believed the world.
In the midst of a long and hard transition myself, and I really appreciated reading this post and the comments here. They saddened me but also gave me hope. Thank you.
I’m finding the comments very helpful as well. I’m glad you are finding hope here in the midst of your own difficult transition, Tara. We need that hope to carry us through!
For me the biggest loss that has delivered a whole new life & set of possibilities for me was my decision (long coming) to end my 33 year marriage. While I wanted us to end, it was very hard at first. And now it’s simply the best gift.
My job was eliminated during the pandemic, and I didn't get rehired as the schools reorganized. That was the spark that burned down my "teacher" identity. It was a reckoning, for sure. I realized that I had rooted my whole identity in my professional self; I had given away my power through my reliance on professional validation. I began writing when this happened, and by the time schools reopened and they offered me my job back, I had already decided to leave teaching. I found myself on the page.
I lost my identify as half of a closely bonded pair when my husband died of brain cancer. I was 55 and had been married to him more than half of my life at that point, and I realized that I had no idea who the adult me was. Or what I wanted from life other than to continue to write and "re-story" the human-nature bond, my mission in life. I was deeply in debt from ancillary medical expenses, almost all of my financial resources were in the beautiful but unfinished house he had been (slowly) building for us, and I knew if I didn't figure something out quickly, I would lose the property and be living in my Subaru. It was terrifying and also liberating. I learned construction, developed a second career buying and restoring unloved houses, and wrote a memoir about living with love in a time of dying that won a few good awards. And I found myself as a writer and human being. Thank you for this post, Anne!
It's trite but true, when one door closers, another opens. It's not often the door we would choose, but that's not the point. Growing and adapting and living with love and compassion in whatever situation we find ourselves is. Blessings!
My divorce was that for me. We got married after being together for 9 years, and then 2.5 months later my husband told me we had made a “mistake” to get married. That massive heartbreak prompted me to take inventory of my entire life. I wanted to start doing things that actually made me happy. I kept getting the nudge to travel, so eventually I quit my corporate job and bought a one-way ticket to South America. I’ve been traveling and living abroad ever since! Looking back, it’s crazy to think that I was ready to settle down when all I ever really wanted to do deep down was live abroad…but that’s how sold into the “American dream” I was at the time.
No other way but through. I'm not sure the origin of that phrase: I first heard it spoken by a woman facing the return of metastasized breast cancer. A little over 8 years ago I faced an enormous forced transition when my husband of 30 years was killed in a road accident. We had been looking forward to planning retirement, travel, returning to things we'd enjoyed when we first met-- instead, I have learned to take on life alone and (mostly) enjoy it. Life, I am learning, is loss. It is inevitable: we are finite beings. Yet, we also walk in eternity. It surrounds us. Occasionally it breaks through. If it is love, it is an austere kind of love. I am under no illusions that my singular life is of much importance to anyone at all except me; but to me, of course, it is precious. The journey is precious. And life, after all, is beautiful!
Thank you so much for sharing this, Beth! And I’m so sorry for your loss. The finite nature of existence, particularly of those we love, is such a hard thing to bear. But as you say, our lives are precious while we have them.
I have two beautiful sons that now live a day's journey away. They have grown up and now have lovely families of their own. When they left, there was a long period of void and sadness, not debilitating, just present. I missed noise and activity and conversations and wondering about their whereabouts, but with their freedom has come new freedoms for me and my husband. We have now retired and have amazing opportunities and freedoms that were not within our reach years ago. Our sons still love us and actually want us to participate in their activities, which we often do. We have also discovered new activities and friends and possibilities that bring us great peace and joy and contentment and the time to pursue new and old interests and friends. Things change, for sure, but sometimes things also grow in unexpected, beautiful directions.
The empty nest is definitely a big loss. But it’s not a disaster, as you discovered. I was terrified of it for years, and it’s a big part of why I decided to leave and start my life over when my daughter left for college. It’s been a sad loss but has also given me so many opportunities. Thank you for reminding me to be grateful for that!
I recently wrote about exactly this type of experience in “My Twisted Version of Twins.” I went through more than 5 years of infertility and miscarriages - so much loss and letting go. Then I ended up with the two most glorious children (who happen to be only 3 months apart in age) I could ever hope to have. It taught me to trust in the twists that come my way.
This Elizabeth Bishop poem is one of my absolute favorites. I taught it to high school freshmen when I was still teaching. I initially thought about my divorce from my first husband when you suggested we write about something that we lost that we thought would be "disaster," but that doesn't qualify as I wanted that divorce and initiated it and was much happier once it had happened, although it wasn't easy.
I actually think that retiring was a loss that I felt like was going to be a disaster -- and was, for a long time. I retired in 2019 from teaching and almost immediately realized I hated retirement. I took three long-term teaching gigs between then and 2022, and finally retired for good. It's taken me that better part of three years to learn to relax into what I felt was not having a purpose, besides as caregiver to my often-ill husband. But now I am discovering the joys of retirement: the leisure to do what I want when I want to, to not have to work nights and weekends, and to explore thing that I would not have had time to do when I was teaching. I spend time with my grandchildren, I write, I watch movies that I like during the day, and I volunteer. I have yet to travel, beyond seeing family, because my husband is frail. But I hope that's coming.
I also hope you are feeling better soon. It's hard to work -- even at something you find exciting -- when you don't feel well.
"Say it!" One of my favorite poems and now, prompts. I thought losing my ambition was a disaster. I left my stressful career for a quiet, creative life. Despite building and living the very life I'd dreamed of, it wasnt enough. I thought I needed to BE successful, to strive, to shine in society's idea of a spotlight. Without my ambition, I feared "they" would think I'd gone out to pasture (age 56 at the time). I scrambled to be something I wasn't and create a new career I didn't want, making myself miserable. It’s an oversimplification to say, "then I woke up", but I did. When I stopped trying to conjure the ambition that left me long ago, I returned to myself. ❤️☘️
Thank you, Catherine, for sharing your journey from outward success to inward fulfillment. Such a great example of losing what wasn’t worth having in the first place. :)
Losing an 18-year marriage, one fraught with abuse and so, so much turmoil, was actually the best thing that ever happened to me. I remember telling my therapist I didn't feel like the pain would ever end. And she told me that it would pass, that one day I'd remember that moment and realize that not only did the pain subside, but that I would emerge from the ashes stronger, more resilient, and more ME than I had been in 20 years.
She was right. If I hadn't gone through my now ex-husband's cheating and the divorce, I wouldn't have been forced to take a long, hard look at my life, to examine what was important to me, what was no longer serving me, and make the choices necessary to create a life that I wanted - and no one else.
That loss led to an amazing transformation of my life.
Thank you for sharing this, Melissa! Such an important reminder that what we think is so important to us can be holding us back from realizing our own dreams.
Lossing my child to young adulthood was the hardest. I still miss that little girl in dress up clothes with yogurt on her face, and also it is a gift, getting to be on this journey with her as she finds her way. She will be 25 soon.
My other great loss was alcohol. Nearly 10 years later the gifts of recovery keep on coming.
Thank you for sharing, Sarelle! Parenthood is one of the best examples of a tremendous loss (or series of them, really) that is also such an incredible gift. Like you, I miss the little girl my daugther was. But what an amazing young woman she had become!
After nearly 21 years of marriage, the rug was abruptly pulled out from under me. The details are still harrowing to me, but suffice it to say it involved a raid on my home by law enforcement and my now-ex going to prison. I lost everything. Or so it seemed. Truth is, it was never a good marriage, I was isolated from my family and friends and manipulated on a daily basis. While I wouldn't have chosen such a traumatic end to it, I've come to realize that I may never have left on my own had things not blown up like they did. I was that beaten down. Now, I am slowly rediscovering who I am and how to live life on my own terms.
What a difficult loss—and an amazing realization that it was just what you needed! Thank you for sharing this, Lisa. :)
Lisa, this also happened to me. I'm coming up on 2 years from the day our home was invaded and my world began to crumble and disintegrate. Now alone, I am free to rebuild my life and my self worth while untangling my identity from a person who I'm not sure I ever knew. A serial people pleaser, for the first time I am living for myself. Some days it is exhilarating and some it is the opposite, but I feel the tide rising each time I'm dashed on the rocks with grief. I know my feet will find dry land, even as I struggle to believe it is there. Thank you for commenting.
What a beautiful image of the tide rising while feeling dashed on the rocks of grief! Thank you for sharing this. :)
The phrase you used, "untangling my identity," is so spot on. It's been a bit over 4 years for me and I can honestly say, I have more good days than bad at this point. I am so sorry for the pain you are dealing with. Please feel free to reach out to me any time - I would not be where I am if it weren't for other women who have consistently supported me and reminded me that it is okay to struggle, as long as we don't give up.
I’ve had to move house 3 times in 15 years, for reasons beyond my control. This is not the norm in my peer group. I’ve discovered that the perceived loss is actually a doorway to growth, new experiences and a joy I’d not have found if I had remained where I was (ie, the path of least resistance). It’s a pain in the ass to move, and very expensive, so I would not have undertaken it if not for circumstances.
Perceived loss as a doorway to new growth—I love it! Thank you, Cynthia for sharing this perspective.
I thought I lost the opportunity to have a normal life or a normal family, with my three daughters. It turns out that our culture normalizes the wrong things.
It turns out that my twins birth three months early with significant disabilities was a tremendous loss only because the world told me they were not normal and we believed the world.
The world lost. Not us.
Nothing could be more normal
Thank you for the question the beautiful sharing
These are beautiful examples of how loss is often not really a loss at all, just a social construction. Thank you for sharing, Prajna!
In the midst of a long and hard transition myself, and I really appreciated reading this post and the comments here. They saddened me but also gave me hope. Thank you.
I’m finding the comments very helpful as well. I’m glad you are finding hope here in the midst of your own difficult transition, Tara. We need that hope to carry us through!
For me the biggest loss that has delivered a whole new life & set of possibilities for me was my decision (long coming) to end my 33 year marriage. While I wanted us to end, it was very hard at first. And now it’s simply the best gift.
A whole new life can open up after the end of a marriage. I’m very happy for you!
My job was eliminated during the pandemic, and I didn't get rehired as the schools reorganized. That was the spark that burned down my "teacher" identity. It was a reckoning, for sure. I realized that I had rooted my whole identity in my professional self; I had given away my power through my reliance on professional validation. I began writing when this happened, and by the time schools reopened and they offered me my job back, I had already decided to leave teaching. I found myself on the page.
I love it! Thank you for sharing this, Maria. :)
I lost my identify as half of a closely bonded pair when my husband died of brain cancer. I was 55 and had been married to him more than half of my life at that point, and I realized that I had no idea who the adult me was. Or what I wanted from life other than to continue to write and "re-story" the human-nature bond, my mission in life. I was deeply in debt from ancillary medical expenses, almost all of my financial resources were in the beautiful but unfinished house he had been (slowly) building for us, and I knew if I didn't figure something out quickly, I would lose the property and be living in my Subaru. It was terrifying and also liberating. I learned construction, developed a second career buying and restoring unloved houses, and wrote a memoir about living with love in a time of dying that won a few good awards. And I found myself as a writer and human being. Thank you for this post, Anne!
Oh my, what a story. Thank you for sharing it, Susan! It’s wonderful to hear about all that you have found on the other side of such a great loss.
It's trite but true, when one door closers, another opens. It's not often the door we would choose, but that's not the point. Growing and adapting and living with love and compassion in whatever situation we find ourselves is. Blessings!
So lovely, and so well put!! Thank you , Susan. Blessings to you as well!
My divorce was that for me. We got married after being together for 9 years, and then 2.5 months later my husband told me we had made a “mistake” to get married. That massive heartbreak prompted me to take inventory of my entire life. I wanted to start doing things that actually made me happy. I kept getting the nudge to travel, so eventually I quit my corporate job and bought a one-way ticket to South America. I’ve been traveling and living abroad ever since! Looking back, it’s crazy to think that I was ready to settle down when all I ever really wanted to do deep down was live abroad…but that’s how sold into the “American dream” I was at the time.
Wonderful story! Thank you for sharing it, Asia. :)
No other way but through. I'm not sure the origin of that phrase: I first heard it spoken by a woman facing the return of metastasized breast cancer. A little over 8 years ago I faced an enormous forced transition when my husband of 30 years was killed in a road accident. We had been looking forward to planning retirement, travel, returning to things we'd enjoyed when we first met-- instead, I have learned to take on life alone and (mostly) enjoy it. Life, I am learning, is loss. It is inevitable: we are finite beings. Yet, we also walk in eternity. It surrounds us. Occasionally it breaks through. If it is love, it is an austere kind of love. I am under no illusions that my singular life is of much importance to anyone at all except me; but to me, of course, it is precious. The journey is precious. And life, after all, is beautiful!
Thank you so much for sharing this, Beth! And I’m so sorry for your loss. The finite nature of existence, particularly of those we love, is such a hard thing to bear. But as you say, our lives are precious while we have them.
I have two beautiful sons that now live a day's journey away. They have grown up and now have lovely families of their own. When they left, there was a long period of void and sadness, not debilitating, just present. I missed noise and activity and conversations and wondering about their whereabouts, but with their freedom has come new freedoms for me and my husband. We have now retired and have amazing opportunities and freedoms that were not within our reach years ago. Our sons still love us and actually want us to participate in their activities, which we often do. We have also discovered new activities and friends and possibilities that bring us great peace and joy and contentment and the time to pursue new and old interests and friends. Things change, for sure, but sometimes things also grow in unexpected, beautiful directions.
The empty nest is definitely a big loss. But it’s not a disaster, as you discovered. I was terrified of it for years, and it’s a big part of why I decided to leave and start my life over when my daughter left for college. It’s been a sad loss but has also given me so many opportunities. Thank you for reminding me to be grateful for that!
I recently wrote about exactly this type of experience in “My Twisted Version of Twins.” I went through more than 5 years of infertility and miscarriages - so much loss and letting go. Then I ended up with the two most glorious children (who happen to be only 3 months apart in age) I could ever hope to have. It taught me to trust in the twists that come my way.
Beautiful! Love this story. :)
This Elizabeth Bishop poem is one of my absolute favorites. I taught it to high school freshmen when I was still teaching. I initially thought about my divorce from my first husband when you suggested we write about something that we lost that we thought would be "disaster," but that doesn't qualify as I wanted that divorce and initiated it and was much happier once it had happened, although it wasn't easy.
I actually think that retiring was a loss that I felt like was going to be a disaster -- and was, for a long time. I retired in 2019 from teaching and almost immediately realized I hated retirement. I took three long-term teaching gigs between then and 2022, and finally retired for good. It's taken me that better part of three years to learn to relax into what I felt was not having a purpose, besides as caregiver to my often-ill husband. But now I am discovering the joys of retirement: the leisure to do what I want when I want to, to not have to work nights and weekends, and to explore thing that I would not have had time to do when I was teaching. I spend time with my grandchildren, I write, I watch movies that I like during the day, and I volunteer. I have yet to travel, beyond seeing family, because my husband is frail. But I hope that's coming.
I also hope you are feeling better soon. It's hard to work -- even at something you find exciting -- when you don't feel well.
Thank you, Kate, for your well wishes, and your insights here! I’m glad you are enjoying your retirement!
I’m reading your comment carefully, Kate. I just retired from teaching….
Good luck!
So true about how hard it is to drive the train forward with one's work when feeling like crap.
You sound balanced and happy in your retirement, Kate. Sometimes it takes awhile to get there, and you have arrived for sure!
Not sure I am entirely there, but on my way! Thanks for your thoughts, Nica!
Just what I needed this morning! 🩷
With much gratitude, to you and Elizabeth.
Be good to yourself! Sending you love and healing!
Thank you, terra! To you as well!