Do Over
I kind of have a thing for sunrises – the way the vivid colors splash across the sky, there for only a few fleeting moments, and the soft haziness of the morning light after the colors disappear from sight. Sunrises fill me with hope and wonder, causing me to stop and stare for a few moments, trying to etch the colors into my mind. Usually I am the only one in my house up early enough to see them, so it’s like a private art showing, just for me.
Sunrises mark a new day. A fresh start. With each sunrise comes the promise of a day that is unwritten – up to each one of us to direct what happens next. It’s the most grand form of do over. Yet often we feel like the day is already written for us. Adult-y things need to happen in order for us to keep living: bills to be paid, laundry to be done, dinner to be made, kids to chauffer around to an endless array of activities. It is rare that a day is unspoken for, but can we really call this living? At best, most of us are just existing. Trying to survive. Relying on weekends to pump some life back into our bodies so we can make it through another week.
I used to feel an increasing sense of anxiety on Sunday as the day progressed, due to the decreasing amount of freedom I had with each passing hour. By Sunday evening it had developed into full-on sadness that the weekend had come to a close, and a formidable looming of the next five days. I couldn’t even enjoy my last hours of freedom because I was too busy stressing out over a day that hadn’t even started yet. Monday through Friday felt like a prison sentence, capped with two fleeting days of parole.
A lot of people live in this unfulfilling pattern. I was one of them, until something happened that changed it all: I lost my job. My position was eliminated, but it felt like a failure nonetheless, and it made me realize how much of my identity I had invested in what I do for a living. Without a job, I felt aimless, with no sense of purpose. Like a responsible adult, I immediately started searching for a new job, but I could not bear the thought of going back to the life I had been barely living. Then something unexpected happened: I started to live again. I spent time with my children, read a book (who has time for that?), and tried new recipes. I had lunch with friends I hadn’t seen in forever, and I lifted my face to feel warmth of the sun when I walked outside. It sounds cheesy, but colors seemed brighter, and as winter melted into spring even the birds sounded chirpier. I was starting to come alive, but it took the death of my former life in order for it to happen.
Isn’t it funny how we cling so tightly to what we have, even if it is not all that great? Fear of the unknown can be paralyzing, causing us to remain firmly rooted in place even when unhappy. I didn’t want to lose my job, even though I had stopped loving it. It seemed like a bad thing at the time, however had I not lost my job I would not have started to breathe again. On the day I was let go, I was granted a most epic do over. It was the best gift I could have been given.
Most people cannot just quit their jobs and walk around smelling the roses (see the earlier part about adulting and bills to pay). But that doesn’t mean that we have to stay shackled to a life that is not really living. If you are filled with dread at the end of the weekend and you go through the week just trying to survive until Friday, then you are not living the life you were meant to live. You may feel like you do not have a choice, but that is a lie meant to keep you where you feel safe (yet unfulfilled). You may feel like you have missed your opportunity – also a lie. Stop trading your life, your most precious gift, for something less than living. Think about your choices – and there are always choices – one of them might just be the do over that leads to your freedom.