at the threshold of a milestone

so today marks the official last day of my fourth decade on this earth. the recognition of this impending date (and more so the day tomorrow) made for a pretty challenging weekend emotionally. and has been the case with each turn of the decade since i moved out of my twenties, the challenge has little to do with getting older, but is more about how i have felt about my life at each transition. at every change, my life seemed to resemble little of what i had hoped it would be at that point. and certainly at each point, i had the same sense of not belonging, not having a home in this world.

the one difference, i see between this time and the previous times is that in the past when i've felt like this there was still a certain amount of belief that i had time for my life to become better as long as god was gracious and would grant me a resonably long life. in this season, however, that belief is in far shorter supply. while i may not yet be "old," i am certainly not young and likely the number of days (particularly productive ones) i have left in my life are fewer than the ones that are now in my past.  and while i am grateful to be alive, i am deeply saddened by the life i am "living."

so many people (many who are younger) keep admonishing me to make my life better. the thing that they don't quite understand is that i have a significant history of trying to make my life better, and in some spaces (for example, economically) my life has gotten better. better, however, does not in this case equate to satisfying or fulfilling. in fact, there is always the question of in attempting to make my life better, have i in some ways damaged the overall quality of it perhaps irreparably? the immediate example that comes to mind is all of the moving around that i have done in pursuit of better career opportunities only to at the end of all of that be alone. then again, i think that if i had not done this latest round of moves, i could still be alone and also in a bad job.

i guess the "net net" of all that i am stating is that in fifty years of life, there are a lot of attempts, a lot of decisions, a lot of choices, a lot of roads taken, and when it feels that you keep ending up back in the same spot in these dark, cold woods of life, alone and lost, you question if the time has come to stop forging ahead and to just sit and wait for someone to come find you and lead you home. the problem for me is i've lost confidence that anyone is looking, that anyone even knows or cares that i am here.