You have probably heard or seen people in their 40s going through mid-life crises before and rediscover who they were through it all. Well, I have not had the chance to go through anything like that.
I have been too busy going through life crises rather than mid-life crises. It has taken a long journey through my 40s to rediscover who I am at age 49. Here is how being broke and broken helped me to find myself again and reconsider my lifestyle.
Broke
During the last ten years, my family and I have endured financial hardship due to errors in our financial thinking and planning. My husband went through numerous jobs, only to end up currently at one of the jobs he left several years ago.
These job changes often left us penniless because he would quit his jobs with no backup plan and then be jobless for several weeks. My income didn’t support us.
We refinanced our mortgage to pay off my school loan debts and others, but we ended up on the bottom and had to foreclose. We had to move out of the house we had begun raising our family, the only home they knew and re-enter the life as renters. The bank repossessed our car. We were flat broke.
Then, we were kicked out of our rental home and left with no place to live. Thankfully, my parents let us stay with them until we were able to find a place we could afford. This is when I was able to rediscover myself.
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Broken
Even though bills had piled up, staying with my parents for the summer that year brought us back closer to breaking even and broke us not just financially. Our spirits were broken. It was truly amazing how well we all coped and got along with each other. We all grew from this experience.
We still are struggling to catch up on all the debt we still owe, but we have come a long way since then. I have learned that we need to live within our means and not purchase things when we truly can’t afford to.
We do not use credit cards at all! That would probably lead to us being homeless again. I do not take my family for granted, but am thankful for the love we all share even during the most trying of times.
Being broken brings you to a humble place that allows you the chance to start again. It allows you to learn from your mistakes and find new ways to creatively solve your problems. It opens your eyes to things you were too blind to and yet needed to see.
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I needed to see that there was more to life than the material things we had and lost. I needed to see what was truly important and where I needed to place my focus. There has been a lot of rediscovering of myself, and I am curious to see what I will rediscover in my 50s.
