Blooming Late? Me too! 2015 Flashback
I never thought of myself as a late bloomer until recently.
But I have come to the unavoidable conclusion that I most certainly am.
And I don’t just mean someone who found a new life’s passion in their fifties, which by-the-way, has been a big surprise.
No, when I think about it, I was always bloomed later than most. I didn’t get it right in the relationship department until I hit forty-two, and I didn’t start a real profession that could keep me alive (acting didn’t count) until I turned thirty.
It didn’t even occur to me to channel my focus and dive into antiques and jewelry until after that pivotal birthday.
Turning thirty was the proverbial line in the sand that I had drawn for myself. It was the self-imposed deadline I needed to get my shit together and measure how close I was to my desired goal, which back then was a paying acting gig.
I had some income trickling in from TV commercials, but I was always in debt, living a deficit lifestyle.
I worked two jobs to make ends meet and that was all right—until it wasn’t.
At the time most of my friends were studying for a real degree or working at real jobs and having real kids. And although to the outside observer it may not have looked like it — I was seeking fertile soil with my face to the sun desperately trying to bloom.
Fucking finally, a decade later, all of my hard work produced the dividends acting never provided. I too had a real career, making real money. By the time I turned forty, I bought a house all by myself.
Then, in my fifties, in an act of whatthefuckery, I started writing, or rather, the writing began to pour through me, and this little seedling has not only broken ground, it has started to blossom.
Some days I wish I’d started writing in my twenties, I can only imagine how much further along I’d be. Then I remind myself that everything happens at the exact right time –– you know, Divine Timing –– and I stop my daydreaming, put down the Fritos, and get back to work.
Late bloomers; blooming later in life; it’s a subject I’m starting to embrace.
Please read the New York Times article below if this subject interests you, and I assure you, you will feel in such good company.
“They” say the key is the ability and willingness to try new things.
I can sum it up in one word: CURIOSITY.
Remaining perpetually curious will facilitate a bloom later in life, and aren’t the flowers that show up after it snows the most beautiful?
Carry on my late blooming loves,
xox
