Yes, 50 was a pretty good year. My heart is full as I reflect on the wonderful year I have nearly completed. I’d like to name a list of fun adventures I experienced, but the truth is the whole year was one big adventure. This past year, I walked boldly down the path of choosing myself fully and unapologetically for the first time in my life. It’s almost as if the emotional weight of others and choices made for others physically weighed me down to the point where I was resigned to believe the mediocrity and melancholy were my only constant companions. What a sad existence of blah blah blah.

Recently I received some feedback from someone I once took care of for too many years. When you are a caretaker, you come to realize that no matter what good you do in a person’s life, once you decide to change your situation, you will be demonized, criticized and blamed. Ultimately the feedback I received was probably cathartic for the individual, definitely passive aggressive, but mostly oppressive. It was yet another person telling me to silence myself, to make myself smaller because my truth and the expression of my truth was uncomfortable to read. If what I write is uncomfortable for readers, I encourage them to embrace the freedom of not reading what I write. I write for me. If people enjoy reading it, that’s wonderful. If not, that’s just fine.

I credit yoga as a major catalyst for change and growth. The movement that yoga encourages enabled me to access a freedom that does not exist outside of asanas and yogic expression. When I’m bent over in wide stance forward fold, inhaling and exhaling, barefoot on the mat in the warm yoga studio, I am free. Add some stacked blocks upon which my head can rest, and I’m in heaven. The seemingly simple act of breathing in and out, focused solely on the rise and fall of my breath, takes me to peace that has not existed in my world for some years.

I have made many choices based on others, based on what I perceived would be acceptable, based on what other people needed or wanted or decided. I’m done with that. For 15 years, I was spending a small fortune to color my hair every other month to cover the grey. And let me tell you, grey hair is strong and determined, and my grey would appear within a week of coloring. It was a maddeningly expensive cycle. Eight months ago, I decided it was time to stop because I was coloring the grey so that I didn’t look too old for potential suitors. It took some time for me to realize that was the reason, but when I did, it was so freeing. I have beautiful grey hair, and it’s healthy. Hopefully, by this time next year, I’ll be fully grey and gorgeous.

I don’t know what the future holds, what 51 holds for me. I will continue to reflect on how people and experiences in my life have contributed to the work in progress that I am. Self analysis is an important part of growth and change, and I seek to evolve into the person that I was created to be. I cannot imagine that my God chose misery and regret for me. I am certain that my life was meant for joy and freedom and peace and love for me.