A Space for My Voice

I always thought that once found, your voice just was. It wasn’t something that changed. No, you just found it and kept it…end of story.

But, I was speaking with a friend a few days ago, and we started talking about voice. I explained to her who I was in my 20’s and then 30’s…and that just doesn’t seem like me anymore.

Now, that’s a scary thing to write down.

So, the next obvious question is: who am I now, in my 40’s? What is my authentic voice, now? I feel that this question is something that is going to take time to uncover and to re-discover.

Shaky ground. The unknown. I don’t always do well with that. I like clean and orderly and a plan. But not for this journey.

It will be the road less taken.

Misty and full of curves and bends and boulders.

And that was my first step: being okay with the unknown, embracing it like an old friend. Inviting it into my thought and curling up with it, gently and fiercely.

I am in new territory.

I am in a space of the unknown.

But, what I feel to my bones, after talking with my dear friend, is that discovering your voice is a journey, not a fixed point in time. Who I was at 18 is not who I am now. I found what I needed to say at the time, but what I need to say now, is so very different. After living a bit more, experiencing love and loss, marriage and childbirth, how could I possibly be that same 18 year old?

She is still within me. I feel her energy and passion bubbling up, but I have been tempered a bit…as we all have, with living.

So, for my final blog post for 2018, I leave you with this wish: I hope you find your voice, I hope you settle into your space, authentically and with passion; I hope this season is filled with a peace that continues to thread itself throughout the upcoming year.

Dear friends, let us seek and find what we need. Let us find our authentic voice and space. Stretch into it. Shout it from the mountains! Breathe it in, deeply! This is my wish for you!

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

I’ll see you in 2019!