Living my second best life

I've recently realised that wanting to live my best life is making me miserable.

Why? Because if I think about the best possible outcomes I can imagine for myself and those around me, it always requires full alignment from others. Not partial alignment. FULL alignment. And as we all regularly do (or should) remind ourselves: everyone has their own reality going on, and there is just no way someone else's wants, needs, abilities, insights, habits, language, etc. etc... is going to create that full alignment with my wants, needs, insights, etc. 

Period.  

Realising that I've been wanting this 'best life' outcome in a particularly important part of my life, created quite the oof-ouch moment for me. Oof, because it kind of hits you in the guts when you realise you've harboured unrealistic and actually quite unfair expectations for quite some time (even if for good and generally quite gracious reasons). But also ouch because you have to let go of something which, for a very long time, you had hoped would soothe a yearning in your wounded soul. 

Since it's undoubtedly a process of severance, letting go of a long held belief and its related hope, will naturally turn into a bit of a grieving process. Yes, this may hit as sobs in the shower, but thankfully, it also hits as quite the moment of enlightenment, and, if you commit to the shift, a great unshackling.

What comes next, is a surprisingly comforting step into what I'm now referring to as my second-best life. Something I can relax into, but with energy. A happier flow, if you will. I'm not settling, I'm just no longer tied to the unrealistic and quite agitating hope for the actions of others that would make me feel whole. 

Rather, I find myself refocused on what I can do to help both myself and others be ok and enjoy life. While holding a generous space for uncertainty and failure, as well as acceptance and joy in the small things, and deep comfort in the big wonderful things I now get to experience as delightful surprises, rather than the slight bitterness that lingers when an overdue expectation is finally met. 

Now, I should just add that I am heavily peri-menopausal, and that this existential insight wave I've been riding the past week might be due to a hormonal high. I might crash and burn in the next week (or in the next hour... hard to tell) after which I might look back at what I've written here as a load of delusional twadwaddle. "Who knows!" I cry with reckless abandon.  Because hey, I'm just over here living my second best life, doing what I can to both be a good and useful person, and enjoy life with the people I care about.