The summer of my life is at an end having already experienced the beauty of birth, growing roots and the blooming forth of springtime as well as the long hot energizing, seemingly endless days of summertime. At age 45  I entered the season often referred to as middle age, the Indian summer of my life when the energy and zeal of youth still abounds in my heart, mind, thoughts, attitudes if not perhaps in my limbs. It is the time of year when summer is not yet fully gone, still holding its grip upon the daytime temperatures but fall’s cool breezes have began to remove the edge of summer’s simmering heat and the nights require a light wrap or jacket to break the chill. The beauty of this time of year shines bright drawing in everyone’s attention when we’re traveling up and down the freeways, especially as the day gives way to evening. The sun sets lower on the horizon splashing rays of red and pink across the sky making it harder to look straight ahead through the windshield, the foliage has began to turn – from emerald and wintergreen to red, gold, maroon but not yet brown, a magnificent kaleidoscope of color and brilliance, fall’s spectacular palette etched across the canvas of our world.

In the middle years of my life I have become liberated, revitalized and seem to glow with a new kind of energy….driven to be my best self, to fulfill my grandest aspirations, to take hold of life in a way I never could before now.  I’m like those leaves…..matured, actualized, embodied by wisdom and experience, understanding and knowledge of myself – of who I am and what I have to offer, to share and to give; of the ways that I can place my stamp upon the world, to leave my unique impression upon this earth. And as I have found my voice,  I’m now golden, a bright and shining ebullience scattering stardust everywhere I go and on everyone within my sphere of influence. This is a feeling I’ve never before experience, the gift of having become a mature middle aged woman.

I can be, do, go, live, work, not work anywhere I choose – moreso than at any other stage or time in my life. I have only one person to be responsible for…., and that’s me.  I’m the canvass, the compass,  and the rudder of my life.  I get to choose how I do it, when I do,  where I do it! What an amazing place to be!  I’m going about things totally differently than I have ever done before…., because I can! In the past I was not sure who I was, what I wanted, where I was headed – or even where it was I wanted to go for that matter. I was living the life everyone else had plotted for me to live – grow up, get a good education, work hard, get married, raise a family, be the good daughter, the good girl, the good student, the good employee, the good citizen, the good wife, the good mother. Okay, so I did all that,  made everyone happy and made me happy too but now that I’m done with all that, what’s next for me?

I’ll tell you what’s next….anything and everything I so desire because opportunity doesn’t cease to knock at a particular age nor does the ability to create them anew. I get to be genuinely,  authentically, “Uniquely Me”!

So those of you who are my age or close (both younger and older), what changes have you made since entering this middle stage of life, how are you re-inventing you and in what ways are you being propelled forward?