Summoning the Phoenix


I goal set to die at 63.

Dogs look like their owners -
sorry, Pablo.
That may seem like a ridiculous goal, but at the time I set it, life was bleak.  To fix a goal and then to see it vividly is a sure way to turn possibility into reality.

Life changed, as it mostly does. I stopped working on this particular goal and when I turned 63 in November, I didn’t die. Well, not that day anyway and not in the traditional sort of way. I died on a Friday evening in February, sitting on the toilet and weeping. If this conjures an image of Elvis, it was nothing as epic as that. The tears ran down my cheeks and dripped into my underpants – no dignity in this death. I now have a new method by which to measure stress, it’s on a scale ranging from one to crying into my underpants. (Should you need to use this scale, it also goes up a level to crying acid tears.)

I’ve had to muster a fair amount of resilience in my 63 years; I know the weight of stress. I’m not sure why this point in my life seemed so impossible. It felt like the perfect storm of a number of events all gathering around me at once. I found myself thinking that I felt ‘burnt’. Then I did another ridiculous thing – this is a pattern for me – I ‘fired’ myself and resigned.

I thought I had a safety net. I discussed my pension with a financial adviser last year. I could take the full non-taxable amount and that would put me on some sort of solid ground. Be prepared - this is where the acid tears appear on the scale. I requested an emergency meeting. At the end of it, he asked if, in the event of my death, I wanted the money to be paid into my estate or to my partner as a direct beneficiary. It was a simple answer – direct beneficiary. With a doleful and deeply caring expression, he told me that in that case, he would be unable to help me as his Christian principles would not allow him to co-sign for a same-sex couple. Burnt.

I found a new financial adviser. The first question he asked was if I had drawn on my pension before. I had. I won’t go into the financial details but this meant that I could only take a portion of the lump sum if I didn’t want to be heavily taxed. I had one toe on shaky ground. Burnt.

M. Scott Peck starts his book, ‘The Road Less Traveled’ with this paragraph: “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult.” *

Life is difficult for all of us. That is the human condition. There are so many people who are feeling ‘burnt’. Where do we draw the line? My mom had her first stroke when she was my age. I choose to draw the line before I get to that point.

This is not a tale of woe but of ‘transcendence’. I know that I’ve made the right decision. There is a choice at the point of breakdown to choose ash or spiritual awakening. The phoenix chooses to burn itself in order to regenerate a new cycle of life. I have been through a death but I have the opportunity to draw the edges of myself together and to ‘fire’ myself in a different way.

My purpose in writing this is the hope that someone will read this and stop - for just a moment and do a temperature check. Burning becomes the norm, it shouldn’t be.

I'm stretching my phoenix wings and looking for a thermal to ride.

I am burnt but I’m rising.


*PECK, M. S. (1978). The road less traveled: a new psychology of love, traditional values, and spiritual growth. New York, Simon and Schuster.






Comments

  1. Unknown1 April 2019 at 22:06

    I love your writing. Your honesty, your humour and your frailty. We are the same age. The older I get, the more I realise how burnt we all are no matter the face we show to the world. You have loads of courage and your humour will carry you through the next stage of your journey. Big hugs.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown2 April 2019 at 06:59

    Ruth, I am walking a short distance behind you. Thank you for making my path a little easier to travel. I, too, am burnt; not broken.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Colette29 October 2020 at 20:37

    The burning question - has Billie found those tear-stained underpants?

    ReplyDelete

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