Own your history- even if you get mad at it sometimes.

Recently, I connected with an old friend I haven’t seen since we were in our forties. We would have stayed in touch, been closer, but we had teenagers, and generational divides, and marriages and looks that were changing and relevance issues and we were just too busy salvaging our identities to deal with friendship maintenance.

Well, not salvaging – that’s very dramatic – let’s say, “managing.” We were managing our identities, which we agreed, had turned on us like mean girls.  

We had a great time owning up to stuff we thought only we were going through at the time, and sharing one truth that is only possible to admit after you’ve put your act together, which is:  how we projected ourselves back then only somewhat resembled how we really saw ourselves, because the way we saw ourselves was so packed with pass-fail messages from ourselves and others, it was a full-time job trying to figure out which inner voice was in charge.

Not everyone feels this way of course, and very likely at-home mothers feel it more intensely while they both create and react to the climate at home and identity begins to wrap around that climate  like parentheses. 

“Here’s the thing,” she said, recalling passages – a parent’s death, empty nest, and divorce. “Nothing that’s coming will be as hard as what I’ve been through. I can’t wait to see what happens now.”

I felt that, as the kids say.

Reader, if you’re in your late forties and any of this resonates, don’t lose track of people at this point. You will need them when you go through this “second adolescence” as my new-old friend called it, and you will definitely need them when you’re older to help you make fun of yourself and the drama you created when you were younger.

Like many people who have reached age not-forties, I have received the gift of clarity on a number of things. I know for instance, that there are few transitions and life stages I've gone through that almost everyone else doesn't go through which leaves me with a larger peer group than I thought I had. I know too, that we can control how easy or difficult our lives will be once we understand the far reach of our unique history, and its influence over:

How we choose to view everything.

How we choose to perceive and react.

How we choose not to react without thinking things through.

Choose.

Choose.

Try something when you're by yourself. Think of things that are wrong. People doing things that worry you. A thing someone said. A thing you did. A thing that’s happened.

Now, force yourself to think with the other hand. Using the words of an entirely different, positive perspective think about every item on your list differently, even if it bends your mind to do it. If you have an issue with someone, force yourself to look at it entirely from their point of view.

See that point of view. Keep thinking about it. 

Do this as often as you can, until it's a habit.

All of us, I am understanding, come into our stages and transitions dragging bags and bags of what our histories have taught us. They are filled with joyful discoveries, exhilarating triumphs, first loves, shocking revelations, memories of people who loved us and made us feel strong and safe, and memories of abusive or cruel people who screwed us out of better self-esteem.

It is often not the random events, or things people do or say, but rather the way history tells us how to interpret them that informs our every behavior, and in turn our every relationship.

That is good news, because the work of writing out your auto-responses will allow you to see through whose eyes exactly, you are viewing your life and it might not be your own. It might be someone who makes you aware of your shortcomings, or people who have messed up their own lives and would like you to feel as badly about yours. We internalize all kinds of people, the ones we love and the ones we've tried to love. 

The history that leads to the way you view and decide to tweak your life can be a hard thing to face, but here’s something else I learned after I was age not-forties anymore:

Time makes us stronger, but mostly time conditions us to face our histories. And if you don’t believe your history has helped or hurt you more than any other influence in life, think of the thing you would like most to hear about yourself.

Now ask, where, if, and from whom you’ve heard that thing before. If things are good, you heard it more than once from someone you love and who loves you, or will when you tell them you need those words in your heart.

Listen to me.

I didn’t go through my forties and fifties for nothing.