When Your Life is No Longer Waiting to Begin

Some went around naming what they still hope to see, experience, accomplish.

When my turn came, I realized to my own surprise, that I don’t have one.

I got some pushback: “Don’t you have any dreams, desires?”

This is not because I’ve done everything.

Over the last decade, I’ve stopped postponing my life.

I stopped escaping pockets of dissatisfaction by telling myself that one day - later, eventually, when all circumstances align and after everyone else is okay - I would finally have time to tend to my desires, live the life I want to live, and become the person I dream of being.

Instead, over the last ten years, little by little, I have been giving myself permission:

to pursue my passions
to live unconventionally
to speak honestly
to disappoint people
to become visible
to change.

I became a writer.
A relationship philosopher and a coach.
A more fulfilled wife.
A more present mother.

I gave up the life of convention. For the last two years I have been living as a nomad, in places that nourish me.

At nearly 60, I am a woman far more visible than I had ever been in my younger years. And it has very little to do with age.

It happened because I stopped abandoning myself in order to remain acceptable.

When many women my age are afraid of becoming invisible, I decided to take up more space.

Over the last ten years, I have gone places I never imagined - emotionally, relationally, geographically, spiritually.

I’ve let go of identities, comforts, and ways of living I once thought I couldn’t survive without.

And I keep redefining what success, intimacy, freedom, beauty, and luxury actually mean to me.

So no - I don’t really have a bucket list.

Because my life is not something I am postponing until later.

My life is now.