growth….

While enjoying my coffee this morning, I stumbled upon “…only in your 20s? It’s not too late to start over.” – What the hell? That pisses me off; what about your 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and 100’s. And what does starting over really mean? 

We are all selves in the multiple; I am a sister, mother, daughter, spouse, banker, researcher, student, writer, gardener, hiker…it goes on and on – none of us are inexperienced; we embody our lived experiences. We have gained and continue to expand our knowledge and our ways of knowing in our own unique ways. I like to think that we are arborescent, meaning we resemble a tree in terms of our experiences, which inform our personal growth and provide our life’s structure. If you imagine all your experiences as tree branches, you can understand there is never starting over. We don’t drop our branches; we grow new ones in new directions.

So what if you stumbled upon an article that said, “…only in your 60s? It’s not too late to grow in new directions. ( feel free to insert your own exact age in place of 60’s) Now, that is one I would like to read. It builds the reader up and recognizes that we are not a piece of human flesh that has messed up or made the wrong choices, or that we look wrong, or whatever other purposeful wrong action can be dreamed up.

So, all my fellow branching people, regardless of our ages and what has gone before, let us grow in new directions; we can follow the light in new ways and reshape ourselves through growth.