Reinvention

My coffee was hot, black, straight.

Just as I like it.

My view from the window of the coffee shop, trendily named ‘Smooth Dark Rest’, a coffee joint tucked away from the main drag of the City, was unrestricted. I could see the drab grey paving stones that formed the pavement, they were slick with rain. The sky was grey too, overcast and clogged up with shades of an even darker grey-green set of shadowy clouds that threatened torrential rain. The melancholy of the weather did nothing to bring calm to my troubled mind. It also actually pretty much described the way I viewed my life at that point in time. Dark, unsettled and a little bit miserable.

No

A lot miserable actually.

The main thrust of my state of mind was that I was sick of the person I had become.

My life had been reduced to an insular, almost reclusive existence.

Circumstances of my work had seen to that. Being involved in the Church had seen to that too. The very community that should have issued hope, only had served to rob me of any sense of life.

I carried a heavy weight around with me constantly, my head felt like it was just a single block of steel and my mood was one of self-pity, regret and despondency.

How I wished I had never been a Salvation Army Officer.

How I wished I had developed my nursing career and never gave it up.

The only thing that I could see that I had done right was to marry Dawn and take on a beautiful family.

These thoughts kind of constantly ate away at the core of my being.

I had become, cynical, defeatist, lethargic and convinced that this was it for me. This was the cards that life had dealt me and a 55 years of age I had little prospect of achieving any of the dreams and visions I once held close.

That morning in the Dark Smooth Rest, simply sipping my coffee and staring at the shining wet pavement something shifted in my head.
A vision burst forth!

I began to see a new world emerging from the blackness.

I saw in no uncertain terms in my minds eye the gifts that I have been given. My teaching skills, my relational skills, my speaking skills, my compassion for the less fortunate and the sick. I then began to see a person who I would like to be. Kind, care free, optimistic, loving, genuine and authentic.

I saw a person who loved life, who embraced all the good things that life offered. I saw a person who had no worries. I saw a person who had lost the heavy steel head and the heavy weights I had carried for so long had disappeared.
As I stared at the greyness of the day my body came alive with life.

I then heard words in my mind.

Well, a word actually.

Reinvention.

I thought it was a weird word to pop into my head.

But

I grasped it immediately.

That’s exactly what I needed.

Reinvention of me.

I needed a new identity.

I had lost any identity I had ever had.

I began to imagine what a new emerging Gary in a new emerging world would be like.

In that moment I desperately wanted to lose the Gary I had become, to leave him wallowing in misery in the Dark Smooth Rest Coffee Shop, and emerge into a new world full of hope and new vision.

And

I just decided

To do it.

I sat upright with my eyes wide open.

I said goodbye to the old Gary and walked out of the Smooth Dark Rest into an emerging new world.

The business of reinvention stated right then.

It meant taking an inventory of what I had become.

It was painful to write these things down.

Things that had shaped my life had to be removed.

But

The fresh excitement of taking on a new identity filled me with hope.

Suddenly a life that seemed dead in the water, reignited.

I began to see that at 55 I still had chance to change direction, to embrace a new future, to take back my dreams and visions.

So

I wanted to write this blog today to encourage anyone feeling lost in the greyness of life.

It’s not over

By any means.

It may seem like it.

But

It’s not over.

There is reinvention.

There is the chance to take a hold of that dream you have.

You just need to shift that old you out of the way.

Get out of your own way!!!

There is hope

There is a new identity waiting for you to grasp a hold of.

Take it.