I ran away from home to find myself! At 71 years of age. In full possession of my faculties though not much grace in the action.

For several years now, I’ve needed to make a different decision about how I was living as an independent woman, one who has needed assistance from time to time, but also one intent on preserving as much dignity and self-respect as a moderately disabled aging person might possess.

This problem has ended up as an internal puzzle with no easy or obvious solution, given the tension between insufficient income and no serious drive to have full or even part time employment necessary to meet all my needs. After all, decades of working has put a crimp on any useful appetite to figure out how I am to care for myself, the physical self you might say, not to mention the interior one which is rich beyond imaginings.

Never perceiving myself as entirely conventional, I had not really arrived at a plan. It’s for others, the color-between-the-lines folks, predictable and, dare I say, staid! As night follows day, naturally there was bound to be a collision between expectations and downright denial as to a subsequent reckoning reality.

Turning Over The Dirt.

After a bit of to and fro, and what was designed to be a permanent solution by myself and others, it simply had turned antithetical to my core sense of beingness which is one of fierce independence in spirit and more of a color-outside-the-lines nature. Hence, the jailbreak of sorts triggering a sense of purpose and rightness I haven’t felt in years. But, it has also slid into an “I must reinvent myself”  mode, which is both frightening at this stage of life, as well as invigorating.

While it feels like I’m kind of old to be undertaking such an action, it has also occurred to me that this could be risky. A sense of terror has wafted over my fierce little core as to how to figure this out. Yet reinvent a new life I must. I have some important help on this front, demonstrating lifelines do exist. But it remains terrifying at times nonetheless due in part to no roadmap whatsoever!

I realize I’m not being terribly specific or detailed here but suffice it to say, “all will be revealed in due time.” Having upset the apple cart in a dramatic and messy fashion, sorting it all out in my own head and heart is now my job so to speak, and once again, flying without much of a net. 

Unconventional Is As Unconventional Does

So, I must lean into my creative and unconventional nature and summon some courage, maybe even fearlessness. And Peace! The details are yet to be determined. I have to set aside my current terror surrounding age, compromised financial situation, a compromised body, and well, all the above and move forward. How? No real clue yet but I’ve promised myself to come up with something, fast or slow, ideally creative, fulfilling and enduring.

The slate has been wiped clean and while I know I rest in spurts of delicious peacefulness, it also accompanies a vague unsettling that requires specific outcomes yet to be discovered. It seems I am left with a kind of pioneering spirit that must be tended to, cultivated yet consistent with my God-given creative nature. In the end, it’s the tiniest whisper, the subtle impulse that will reveal a solution to living this next stage of my life. And I will know…