Discovering who I am

 

In her memoir about he husband's suicide,  Chase the Rainbow, Poorna Bell writes:

"When someone you love dies.......you aren't just saying goodbye to them, you are saying goodbye to yourself. .....You slowly turn into something stronger. You realise what you have a choice over, and what you don't. You turn what you know into strength, you help others find theirs, and you are gifted a compassion that is so deep and limitless, at times it is the only thing that gives you peace. ......And although for a while it feels like this is all there will ever be, you look down and see you are different...."

I am different. I'm trying to figure out who I am, who Sarah is after 22 years of being half of "Sarah and Mark" The couple so solid everyone thought we'd be the ones to make it til "death do us part" well we did....just a lot sooner than anyone expected.   So who am I now? 

What I won't be, for very much longer, is a hospital optometrist.  After agonising for weeks, begging for the thunderclap sign of what I should do, a day's gardening gave me head space to hear the still small voice whisper that it's time to move on.  I  needed to resign.  Not because of the stresses and pressures in the NHS, not because life as a lone parent would be so much easier with a more flexible work/life balance; not even because I've lost my love for the role.  But because the job is so entwined with my old life.  I've been a hospital optometrist for the same length of time I was married (to the month, infact.  15 years this July). The problem is I can't heal with one foot in the past. 

So I have taken a leap of faith and handed in my notice. I can't tell you how much lighter I felt the moment the decision was made, and even more so once I had informed my boss. Of course it is not without a degree of sadness, after all I've invested my whole adulthood in this career, but sadness is balanced by a sense of liberation.    

I have an interview next week to begin training as a counselor and I could not be more excited about this chance at a new career, a second go at adult life.   However, I've been having a bit of a wobble about it today.  I don't regret my decision at all, nor do I expect I will come to in the future, but it has triggered a fair bit if grief.  I'm making a major life change, the biggest decision I've made in years and he isn't here to see it. He won't see any of my new life;  It's a double edged sword,.  I'm leaving my old life and with it, him, behind and that is what I need to do in order to heal and find a life worth living again.  That is triggering and scary without my life partner to cheer me on. 

Saying that, I'm not worried about it much at all, which is odd for me- a self confessed worrier. The Sarah of August 2021 would be horrified that I'm doing this.  She was such a planner, play it safe, do the right thing type of person.  But the Sarah of May 2022? Well, she has already lived through the worse case scenario-twice- and has finally learned that worrying will not add a day to her life.   A life which is precious and deserves the respect of being lived to the fullest, and happiest, it can be. 

Who am I? Quite possibly a phoenix called Maverick.