Your skin is yours, but it is not your own. Your thoughts are yours, but not within your control. Before you know it, you have parted ways with the body, and sometimes the mind, you presumed were yours for a lifetime.

You are lost.

The familiar feels like disingenuous moments you gloss over, while the meaningful moments either disappoint you with surprising apathy or overwhelm you with waves of hopelessness. 

You disconnect to protect, feeling elements of shame or embarrassment. The “you” you once knew would overcome tribulation, articulate gratitude, and rebound from the hardships that were once minor hurdles on the way to optimistic goals. 

You are lost. 

You are distracted with this new, uncomfortable way of living.  Racing thoughts prevent you from accessing what once was. When you do catch a wave of the essence of who you once were, you are quickly overtaken with the sadness that comes from missing the best parts of yourself. 

Where did I go? 

Will I ever reconnect with the person who I took for granted? The person that, in my youth, I forgot to revel in their abundance of courage, hopes, and dreams.  The person I once felt energized to inhabit, who now requires resuscitation. 

Good news lies in the prognosis of a tired spirit.

You did not disappear. In fact you were never lost. You were simply stepping into a new era of being. You were meant to shed your skin for the growth required to handle the unbridled truth of life: It is finite. 

A dichotomy exists in life. In youth, we push forward with a heart that takes much for granted. Tomorrow appears endless, so urgency is bounded. Whereas in a life long lived, suddenly, tomorrow loses the luster of certainty. We dreadfully anticipate moments foretold with warning, shadowed with fears of inevitability.

We must land in the middle. When it seems as though our chapters are written, remember – Fuck that! Chapters are never written when you yield the pen.

Write, my friend! Write with veracity, resilient hope, and faith. Your choices, thoughts, and next steps are not ingrained.  They are habits that can be broken so that you can once again feel like you are existing to live, not living to exist.  

Time may cause our minds to not be as sharp or our bodies to not be as strong… But our wisdom is abundant, our faith is unwavering, and our give a fucks have vanished. 

What an awesome place to be, for suddenly we care about the right things.

We love hard because we have resiliency and the life miles to recognize that everyone is human and deserves grace.

We live well because we know money is good but peace of mind is better; we give our energy to the quiet and natural gifts of this world. 

We laugh with a whole heart because we have no false pretense, unafraid to be what God made us; we can enjoy the fulfillment of authentic, real relationships.

When we think we are past our prime, God gives us the gifts to recognize that everything we have ever needed is buried within whom He has called us to be. Embrace yourself, the person you have neglected and tormented. Then give yourself permission to simply say, “Today I lovingly come back to myself.”