I’m fairly absent-minded these days.
I wasn’t always this way, though, I swear.
I can remember, in the very distant past, (like, the sepia-tinted photo, kinda past), when clarity was common; when I could actually see a thought through from beginning to end, when I wasn’t diverted for hours every day, looking for stuff that mere seconds earlier was in my hand, or in my pocket, or on my head.
I’d like to chalk it all up to getting older, (though, that would mean admitting to actually aging, and so, I choose to refuse this fervently).
I could blame it on my kids, (and anyone with kids, would give me a speedy “amen”, a hearty air high-five, and the permission to pass the buck on to my progeny at every turn).
I could say it’s the frantic pace of life in Suburbia; the cost of having, and doing and wanting much too much.
All valid culprits, really. I could blame any or all of those things, when I lose track of my keys, or my wallet, or my first-born child, (albeit briefly, in a Super Target). Age and kids and pace, all conspire to sidetrack the brain, and threaten to turn buying diapers at the corner store, into an all-points bulletin, search party scavenger hunt in your own dining room.
But what do you do when you lose something more important?
Who do you blame, when you can’t find something more valuable, less tangible, but equally lose-able?
What happens when you misplace yourself?
The conventional wisdom is that when you’re a child, you’re discovering or forming your identity; you’re navigating new things, finding what you like to do, weighing what you believe on critical issues, and slowly but surely, as the years pass, you’re developing into the person you will become. There’s the assumption, that somewhere in that sweet spot between high school and your early thirties, you finally figure it out: You find yourself.
If this happened in my life, I think I may have slept through it or been out sick that day.
I can’t ever remember ever feeling like I finally arrived; when I felt finished, (or even half-baked, as a matter of fact). Oh sure, there have been fleeting moments of clarity, about love or faith or vocation, but these have been eye-blink little breaks in the clouds, just seconds of sunlight streaming through the fuzzy haze of endless missteps, redirects, wrong turns, and plain-old screw-ups.
Most things, if you do them every day for 40-plus years, you’ll hopefully get better at them, (or you give-up and realize that maybe, well, interpretive dance just ain’t your thing). But here, somewhere near midlife, I have to confess that I still feel like I’m becoming, like I”m heading toward who I will be, but never quite there.
As a Christian and pastor, I know the Sunday School Solution, (which, if you’re church-impaired, is always, always, always… Jesus). I tell my students, that their real identity is in Christ; that what He says about them is, the truest thing about them. In my heart, I believe that, too. I believe it about them and about me.
And yet, in real-time; in the spinning, swirling dance of daily life and responsibilities, landing in that clear, secure place seems like trying to hit a hummingbird with a spitball.
In adulthood, everything is always shifting slightly; your relationships and your roles, your health and your home life, your finances and your faith. As you get older, you face those constant, nagging battles; with waistline and hairline and bottom line, and you see and feel the speed of it all increasing. You watch your children lose their baby softness seemingly overnight, and you get that unavoidable vertigo, as you understand how quickly it is all happening.
It would be easy, at my age, to write off all of this insecurity and unrest, as a simple midlife crisis, but the truth is, we’re all in a mid-life crisis. We’re all in the middle of our living; of seeking and finding and losing and recovering who we are. Until it’s over, we will be in the middle of it all.
And, I guess that’s the heart of living; that you never ever are, but you are always, forever becoming.
Maybe, if today, you feel like you misplaced yourself, keep going.
You’ll turn-up.
Be encouraged.
