By: Katrina

Katrina — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 13:54:40 +0000

I don’t know if this makes you feel any better but the truth is we all (or most of us) look at other women and families and envy their lives even when we are healthy. Not out of greed but out of longing….wondering what it would be like to have a child, a husband, a normal family….without the daily pressure of money and never having enough to pay bills or stay afloat.
I used to get envious on the holidays when everyone but me had a nice place to go to with their family – something I haven’t had in over 20 years before I lost it all after I had it all… It’s so ironic how as you say, our lives change so dramatically over time because it is part of living – it’s what happens to all of us no matter who or what we are – but we mostly expect those bad changes to happen in old age….as if we can control the timing of it all – until we realize we can’t. I used to wake up frantic in the middle of the night in my late 30′s. My heart would be pounding and I would rub my eyes and literally pinch myself to know that I was still alive and that this really was my life…because it had not turned out to be anything I had envisioned, imagined or expected it to be. There was no Prince Charming, no 2.5 kids, no house in the suburbs, no country club memberships, no friendly neighbors to confide in, no stellar career with a corner office, no beautiful clothes and fantastic vacations, close knit family ties or support systems in place. It was just me, fending for myself in a jungle world and only my intuition and instincts and past experiences to guide me through the trenches. I cried a lot alone and sometimes to others including strangers – who turned out to be kindest of all. The friends and family and colleagues who surrounded me in my younger years, when I was successful and the road ahead was promising, had all abandoned me like an Internet shopping cart. It seemed scary and hopeless and unbelievable to me for so many years. I couldn’t believe that people were capable of such cruelty and abandonment. I felt sorry for myself for many years. But then something eventually changed inside of me. My perspective and my priorities changed in a huge way. I stopped living to please everyone else for the first time in my life – I finally stopped caring what others thought and said about me because I realized at the end of the day, it’s all up to us. We need a purpose in life but we also need to know that life is going to change those purposes for us and leave us in a very different place from where we came from and from what our expectations were for ourselves. What I realized was something deep down I already knew for a long time; the while I was living for everyone else, they were happy with the results but I was not. And then the situation was reversed, I began living for me, and no one in my inner circle “recognized” me anymore. But I am OK with that because it made me realize that the life I was living was not really mine – it was their wishes for me. Today, life is hard and it’s a big struggle but every day is a learning experience and a gift that I finally appreciate – something that I would not have been able to do if I had stayed living in someone else’s world. The meaningfulness of life is measured in quality not quantity. Some people have more quality in 10/20/30/40 yrs of life than others do in 70/80/90+yrs of living. It’s who you are and how you lived which is the true meaning of life. The legacy we can only hope to leave behind is how we inspire and help others to become better people in a society that is starving for empathy and compassion. God bless you and your beautiful family….

By: Susan Beach

Susan Beach — Fri, 29 Aug 2014 15:14:12 +0000

I have come to look forward to your weekly posts and didn’t get to read this one right away. What a gift you have as a writer Sarah. I will be forever grateful for the wisdom you’ve shared with us, and the look inside your life you are living so fully. Makes me feel pretty small when I grouse about meaningless shorts and slights.
Love you.

By: Mykael Moss

Mykael Moss — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 17:03:28 +0000

Another wonder filled commentary and food for thought for all of us in whatever situation we are living in/with. Your ability to see and feel the positive and paint it for the world is so remarkable. Keep writing; we need to hear more from you. Namaste!

Comments on: Being Someone Else

By: Katrina

By: Susan Beach

By: Mykael Moss