Recently I passed the date of a particular anniversary. It doesn’t matter which anniversary, as anniversaries are usually forgotten by me – especially in my menopausal state – and I’m just not a follower of the rules of holidays of any sort. Still, the niggling memory of that anniversary and a conversation I had with two different women in the past couple weeks got me reflecting on how my life has changed over the last 12 years – how finding True North, as one of them put it, was at hand for me then and for them now.

I remember that feeling. When at last I could go home unashamed and unafraid to visit my family – openly being who I am. Where I could at last walk in life with my head held high as though I was finally free of some dark, deep secret that reared its head at the damndest times. Where I’d have a chance to unleash the real me for once and always—for better or worse. Well, with a few self-serving bumps in the road, to be sure.

I follow a lot of blogs. These two women I spoke with recently are both in my age range. Both married. Both with children. Both having experienced a moment that became catalyst to upheaval beyond the scope of any they will have gone through before. I’ve grown quite fond of them both. Wanted to rattle their cages on more than one occasion, but knew we must each make our journey in our own way and time.

They have a hard future ahead – at least for a little while. It’s hard enough being a single mom. Hard enough learning to stretch the budget. Hard enough dealing with ex issues and childcare and jobs and new schedules. Hard enough finding a new network once you realize that the old ones will be there in fits, starts, spurts, and sputters. Hard enough having that coming out conversation with every single person of import and waiting for any one of several reactions ranging from full love and acceptance to disdain and disgust and a quick severing of all ties as they run for the sanitary handwash afraid somehow it will rub off – and never being sure as you walk in which reaction you will get.

But, once it all sinks in that things will never ever be the same, there is no turning back, the thing about to burst inside of you also screams out, “FINALLY!” as it takes you down the street, around the block, around the corner to the freeway and launches you into the stratosphere of being who you are despite the pain that accompanies such upheaval. It’s a shaking, quaking, smiling, laughing, crying joyful journey of discovery of self and others while having the mind and body of someone who can actually appreciate the vivid colors that assault you as if you were a blind woman suddenly sighted and wraps you up in the safety and comfort of the sun and moon and stars as you begin to live at last in the way intended.

I kind of envy them that. I wish I could say the colors hadn’t faded a bit over the years and the sun, moon, and stars were not occasionally cast in haze, but they have and they are. I try to hang onto those moments in any way I can, for the time I am able. I can still summon the smell of the grass, the song in my head, and the first burst of love in my heart—at last for me. As steady as a heartbeat, life goes on. Consistent, erratic, pounding, steady – it’s life – only this time with eyes wide open.