When Your Life is Different from What you Expected

Light of Life

I turned 40 several years ago, and of course, took some time to reflect on my life at that moment. I wrote the following…
At 40
When I was 40
I lost myself

Mirror, Mirror
On the Wall

Spoke and said I never had it

I dreamed a large
Virgin Mary
At this place

She cradled my skeletal remains
in her giant arms
Peace-filled smile upon her face

She rinsed my skeleton in the
River Styx
The smile broke and the tear fell

“oh this is where we get the River
Styx” my silly thought

With
waves
of her making
she mouthed

“I wanted to bear WOMAN
Instead I bore Man”

I knew she knew the pain
At life of difference.

I had a dream with the Virgin Mary in it. She informed me that she had always wanted to birth a girl. I thought how different the trajectory of Christianity would be had Mary gotten her wish and birthed a girl.
I have always been soothed by images of the Virgin Mary- so complacent, centered, and aware, I have thought. In my dream, I could sense her pain that her life had turned out differently than she expected.

Who hasn’t had this experience? I like to believe when I pray to the Virgin Mary she understands our pain at a life that has turned out differently than expected. Such feelings are not wrong. The difference between the lives we expect and the lives we lead is a great impetus to awareness and growth. Tension exists in this difference which inspires some of our most profound thoughts and compassion. We all live a life different than planned and in that, like the Virgin Mary, we experience the miraculous unfoldment of life to be lived.