Lost & Found at 35
When I was in kindergarten, I couldn’t wait to turn 16 years old. I would be a cool gal, breezing through life and enjoying everything a (supposed) adult life had to offer. Needless to say, that - most definitely - wasn’t the case.
When I was finishing my second Master in Paris as an existentially exhausted but still hopeful 24 year old, a friend told me that 26 was going to be it. Her life changed dramatically starting from her 26th birthday and she was sure mine would as well.
Then it was turning 33. Mostly because Jesus died at that age and I, while not being Christian, believe that he was a pretty cool dude (no offence meant) and that maybe I should also try to achieve something remarkable by that age. I ended up having a very heartwarming celebration, but that’s about it as far as remarkability goes.
I never had any specific feelings for the age of 35 but if I had to guess the thoughts of my 10 years younger self, by this time I would have had things figured out. If not everything, at least something. Like my career, my finances, my love life or my place of residence. At least one, right? As it turns out, not only none of the above is figured out, but I’m likely walking on a path that is leading me on a pretty wide circle to getting anywhere near that.
My 35th birthday has been spent:
without any close friend around
outside of my own country
with no birthday cake and age-revealing candles
But at the same time, reaching 35, in this stumbling, sometimes joyful, sometimes sad, perpetually seeking way of mine, also showed me that:
friends are always with you and you can share smiles and laughter and love with any (human) being you happen to bump into along the way
you can make a home literally everywhere, and the best place for it is actually within yourself
I didn’t have any cake but sent off a candle on the river Ganga, so I believe that should count
It’s been more than one year since I left my corporate job to discover what I should devote my third career shift to. Not only I still haven’t the foggiest idea, but to my dismay I’m finding that the more I search, the more I want to spend time searching. I’m turning into one of those trite click-bait stories of “successful manager decides to resign and go to India in search of herself”. At least I stopped by Taiwan on the way between Bali and India, so that I can’t be accused of minutely retracing the “Eat, Pray, Love” dusty footsteps.
In one of my last stops in Vrindavan, the girl who introduced me to the ashram where I spent some 4 days chanting God’s names, told me that in Vrindavan she “lost her mind but found her heart”. I don’t feel I would ever be able to completely lose my mind, as that would be the equivalent of losing a foundational part of myself, but paraphrasing her: “I have lost my way but I’m going in the right direction”.
This peculiar combination of loss of forward-thinking but gut-feeling that this seeking is still the right path forward is one of the main reasons why I decided to start a website.
Because I believe that I’m likely not the only one who’s searching. I’m hoping that sharing my experiences, questions, and hypotheses as to their answers might provide, if not some solace, at least some entertainment value for anyone else in this big community called “humanity”.
Maybe some of these musings and stories can remind ourselves that searching for wonder is a worthwhile pursuit and that much magic is already existing here, in this exact moment, wherever we are on this Earth.
