Alanis Morissette is a guru
I woke up on my 40 something (mumble mumble) birthday. Numbers don’t count after 40. Switched on the radio and the song that came on sucked me back to the hot summer of 1995. A-Levels were just finishing. I was 18 years old and life was just a melting pot of enthusiasm mixed with delicious bad decisions.
The artist was “Alanis Morrisette” sound track to my teenage angst and budding feminist rage, but instead of playing from a CD on a dusty stereo in a bohemian art exam, whilst I poured my soul into an inspired but truly terrible piece of work, this was Alanis at 51 years of age, killing it on the a main stage at Glastonbury.
“One hand in my pocket” the lyric to launch a billion carefree thoughts. The birthday moment…perfect.
Being 40 ish (mumble mumble) single and childfree. Navigating a new (to me) world, following a series of very unfortunate events. Working out who I am and where I am going. It is not where I imagined myself to be. And if I’m honest, at times this has felt heavy on my usually hopeful heart. Not belonging to the social norm can feel strangely suffocating, even when the reality is so free. A societal checklist with glaring gaps longing to be filled. Sometimes with judgement, sometimes with grief, and sometimes simply with the isolation of not fitting in, not belonging; being other.
At least…that’s how it used to feel. But now, with time, I have noticed that murmurings of excitement have nudged trepidation out the door, curiosity has affectionately told fear to rest her weary feet, and the suffocation of ‘missing the proverbial boat’ has been replaced with a sense of delicate liberation, tentative but most definitely, tantalisingly there. This song felt like a little nudge from the universe saying ‘see… i told you. Everything’s gonna be fine fine fine.”
And it got me thinking…So much of our lives we run along what’s feels like a pre-destined timeline. A narrative of success, determined by… i really don’t know who. Do you?
And that’s the thing, who made this prescriptive timeline? Who decided that this is the way a successful life should be built? That we should all get married, buy a house, have children, dress conservatively by the time we hit 40 and generally try not to make a fuss. Please tell me because I would really like to have a word! But I bet you can’t can you. Neither can I. And that is a truly liberating realisation. Because ultimately this means, it’s simply not true.
Now don’t get me wrong, in general i like a plan. In fact I flippin LOVE a good plan. It is undoubtedly comforting to have a vague diagram of how to do this thing called life, that we can mark ourselves against like some smiley face sticker chart ticking off the goals of existence. But the flip side comes when you don’t fit the mold. When you don’t hit the benchmark, or life throws you off-script. If there is a right systematic way to ‘do life’, by default there is also a wrong way, and i just don’t believe that’s true. No human being is one size fits all when it comes to dreams and goals, no character fits one prescriptive lifestyle, and I firmly believe we should celebrate our differences like cheerleaders on crack!
We need the mothers and the fathers, we need the trailblazers and the adventurers, we need the traditionalists and the eccentrics, the creatives, athletes, free spirits and nomads. We need the carers and the disrupters, we need you all. And what’s more, you can be any one of those things at any point in your life.
Contrary to what the world would have us believe, there is no right or wrong order to do things, there is just your order, that’s right for you. Because the truth is… and let’s say it louder for the people at the back…
“No-ones got it figured out just yet” we are all just doing our best and that is more than good enough.
Sometimes what we really need is to throws the script out the proverbial window and run towards what inspires us like the world is on fire!
The biggest gift you can give to the world is to simply be you. Follow your heart and your path will appear. We don’t need carbon copy people living carbon copy lives in carbon copy houses. We need you in all the wonderful, unique, weirdly fantastic ways that make you so much you-ier :)
And on that note I will leave you with the wisdom of my teenage self appointed Guru
It’s is perfectly OK to “feel lost and hopeful, its fine to feel sane and overwhelmed” understandable even, in a world where we are told to be one thing when so many of us are another.
In my case I’m “short but I’m healthy, I’m brave but I’m chicken-shit” - Thanks Alanis xxx