Searching for a new label

Once upon a time last year, I was searching for new label.  I was turning forty, and the need to find a forty-defining label overwhelmed me.

Here was a milestone; a major milestone.  I was forty.  I needed a label.  I have always had labels.  I was newborn, infant, toddler, youngster, adolescent, young adult.  I was girl, daughter, wife, mother.  I was Christian, educated, professional.  Each of these labels had a start date and an end date.

Even the most permanent looking labels had an end date.  I knew that I would remain a girl or daughter for as long as I lived, assuming that my death would mean the demise of my girlhood, the daughterhood, the female me.

What would be my label at forty?  Who gave out the labels at forty?  What would be the basis of the labeling at forty? Would they label me according to the years I had lived?  Or could it be based on achievements? What were my achievements? 

What about if I could give myself a label?  If so- what could it possibly be?  I pondered.  I thought.  I soul searched.  I asked myself “what is the meaning of my life?  I told someone I was thinking of having a breakdown.   Their response “you must be joking – get serious”.

Everyone else around me who was turning forty was having these big themed multi-thousand wedding-like parties, saying life begins at forty, forty is the new thirty. All those lovely lovely platitudes.  None of which rang my bell.

By accident, I did meet one woman who got it, who understood my dilemma.  She knew and empathised with exactly what I felt.  It was a conversation with a friend of a friend, which took a different turn.  It was now profound and personal. Apart from telling each other our life story, the one thing she told me was to stop searching for a label.  Not in so many words, but that is what she said.  And she told me, I would not find one.  And the desire to get the label, and stick it on myself, was what was fueling my angst.  

Who am I?  Who was I before forty?  What will I be after forty?  Who will I be after forty? So now that I am forty – what happens next?  Forty-one?  Is forty-one an issue too?  What is the next milestone expected of me?  What do I expect of myself?  What should I do?  How will I do it?  Will some maturity infuse my thoughts and actions now?  Oh goodness - was that a label.  Oh boy - I am a mature person!!  Headache. What does mature mean?  Wat does that mean for me?  What does that mean to me now, next year, and the year after?  What does that mean to me in the whole of my future?  Will I become more and more and more and more mature.  Heat infusing thoughts.  And OH MY GOODNESS – the future they talked about is here now truly really here now.

Breath in.  Breath out.  Relax.

What’s my label?  My now label?  My future label?

image; ambertiffini.tumblr.com