Embracing Change: Life Lessons from 58 Years

If a photo is worth a thousand words, here's 20,000 words of personal evolution over the course of 58 years.

The top row is the story of my beginnings. I was born with a cone head. My father said it scared him to death when we first met, but my mother was in labor for like 24 hours, and my head showed the effort she made to get me out.

So what tone did the circumstances of my birth set for me for the rest of my life?

I believe it led to me wanting to understand pressure and the growth that comes from tight places.

The photo of me smirking in my cool 70's attire is a big memory for me. My mother was making a framed piece of art out of felt letters she had painstakingly cut out with her good sewing scissors.

There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill becomes any of us to find fault with the rest of us.

First of all, that was the first time I had ever seen my mother do something creative. I was mesmerized by her process. And my father, who loved photography, was using his brand new Pentax camera circa 1972 to capture this moment in time.

That was a day that I remember very clearly. I was basking in an atmosphere of love and self-expression.

Moving on, there is the photo of me in my 1980's big hair with the striped sweater. I was sitting on the couch on Christmas morning, waiting for the day to get going. My parents were divorced, and the merry-go-round of Christmas travel between parents had just started.

Those years were a pressure cooker for me in many ways.

Navigating new family dynamics with my parents' remarriages, step-siblings, moving to a new place and trying to deal with my own internal changes due to being a teenager was chaotic and filled with emotional drama.

I emerged from it understanding that life was unpredictable. After graduation from High School, I kicked around for a couple of years, then moved to Chicago with my best friend, Wendy.

Chicago was frightening and exciting to me.

I was 21, and legally able to drink. And I did. A lot.

And as a result of some things that happened, I decided it wasn't for me, and I left for Alaska.

The land of pressure and what it that looks like in a landscape was illuminating!

It changed me...and I emerged from that period of life learning to be more self-reliant.

On the second row, you'll see a progression of me growing through my love of the outdoors.

I started traveling solo and saw many things around the world that left me more curious about our water covered planet.

I lived on a couple of boats working as a Steward, and on my off time, traveled to Europe and walked a lot, looking at castles and drinking warm beer in pubs.

I discovered that I like to wander around in my mid-20's, and I moved a lot.

I ended up married to another wanderer and we explored various places for the next 20 years. We finally ended up in Roanoke, Virginia and it has become home.

My wandering over the last ten years has been more internal than external. That's the third row. I went through a period of coloring my hair blonde to hide the gray.

Menopause. Talk about a pressure cooker. All of those juicy hormones decided to take a siesta. I went through a period (ha!) of trying to get it back.

But no. Another lesson on the pressure to stay young.

Then I decided, fuck that, let that silver shine. Becoming authentic became very important. I wasn't chasing anything much externally anymore.

The experiences I was craving became focused on integrating all of these versions of myself that I'd experienced in the past into some wisdom for my future.

It was a time of deep reflection.

I was the girl looking to laugh. I was the teenager trying to shrink herself because of the changes that swept her up and tossed her around like a boat with no motor in a sea of tall waves.

I see different cities that led to different versions of love, different kinds of laughter.

Some of those faces I see in my photo collage feel like strangers. Some feel closer than ever.

Funnily enough, none of those women are fully me anymore. But they’re not gone, either.

Just a few days ago, I looked in the mirror at my studio and saw my mother and father smiling back at me. My mother's eyes, and my father's chin, live on my face.

I now see not just different versions of myself on my face, but others, too. I've spent so much time with my beloved, that we are now starting to resemble each other.

Integrating all of my life's experiences into what I am now is a trip!

Somewhere along the way, I stopped trying to become someone. I started allowing myself to become.

There's a difference.

So who am I now?

I'm here. That's all that I know anymore. I'm here, I'm always changing and have learned to appreciate the pressure of becoming, and accepting the death of what once was.

Even if I have to live with temporary distortions from those tight spaces, like my birth story, it's been worth it.

And maybe that’s the beauty of looking back... not to define ourselves, but to witness the cycle of birth, and death, and rebirth over and over again.

And understand that "I" am still here.

I find that comforting.

When the body I am using is used up, where do "I" go then?

And what do I want to leave behind that lasts indefinitely?

Random fact about me: My first job was working on a frog farm in Arkansas. I was 12.