A change is coming...

I'm burnt out. It's as plain and simple as that. I don't want to say that I don't want to do this anymore, but today that's just how I'm feeling.

Don't get me wrong, I love what I do but over the years it has become very different from what I imagined it to be. In short, THIS has started to feel like a job instead of the spiritual expression I believe it to be.

Back in 2005 I had a revelation about my life and had made some hard core decisions based on that revelation - decisions that I did not follow through on and instead continued to trudge forward on a path that became increasingly pocked and cratered. hoped that things would change, but they haven't and now those feelings and desires that I experienced four years earlier have returned.

I need a change of scenery, a change of content in my life. I'll be 44 years old this year. I figure that's about midway through - so what do I want to do with the second phase of my existence? I want to relocate to a small, progressive, culturally rich community and go back to school. I want to indulge in other artistic mediums such as painting, photography and piano! I want to immerse myself in the practice of yoga and meditation.

I want, I want, I want!

I want it so badly that it's keeping me awake at night.

So what has been keeping me back?

Well one thing is the my strong long embedded sense of responsibility.

I am the eldest of four children, which means (at least in my household) that I was responsible for my siblings. I am three years older than the middle child and thirteen years older than the babies (twins). I can't remember back to a time when I did not know how to make a bottle, change a diaper, take a temperature, give medicine, give a bath, read a bedtime story and so on...and then I did it all over again with my own child. I've been mothering since I was five years old. And now my mother is at an age where she wears the adage - once a man twice a child - like a badge on her lapel.

My daughter is twenty-one years old. Didn't that used to be the cut off, the expiration date? My how things have changed! Ok to be fair, she still has another year left in school...but I'm a tell you right now she ain't living like a struggling college student...if you know what I mean.

The second reason and the icing on the cake is the fact that I was raised in the Catholic church -- raise your hand if you know anything about Catholic guilt? It only runs second to the guilt a Jewish mother dishes out.

I'm managing two households - three on a bad day, writing like a fiend and wondering where in the world this dent in my thigh came from? "A shift in fat?" a friend of mine suggested. Wonderful, just something else i need!

I love my house, but I think I've utilized all of the good energy it had and now we both need a break from one another. I don't want to sell it, it is truly a gem, so I'm not against leasing it to a family who can make their own special memories here. I love Brooklyn, but I don't mind just being visitor.

Escape --

It could be a just a midlife crisis thing. But I'm feeling Spring in a way I haven't for a very long time. Renewal? Shoot, you ain't said nothing but a word - I'm totally there. All around me people are making changes in their relationships and lifestyles. The shift is serious and its having a dizzying affect on me.

I'm nearing meltdown status -!

Today I climbed into my car, turned on the ignition drove a few blocks and a strange symbol I had never seen before popped up on the dashboard screen. I pulled the car over, retrieved the owners manual and proceeded to search for the symbol -- BRAKE PADS! I just started to cry.

Of course me needing to change the brake pads on my car is not the end of the world -- but at that moment, it was the end of my rope...

ESCAPE!!

So I've already picked out a school and a lovely townhouse that is walking distance to the downtown restaurants and shops. I'm working The Secret by visualizing every single detail. I want to be in that place I've created in my minds eye by September.

Please don't ask where -- I'm not ready to share that yet. But I already see a book in the making -- something in the same vein of Eat, Pray Love - but with a much shorter title: LEAP!

Bernice L. McFadden