Growin up is hard to do

This one goes out to all of you who have had a self-reflective moment and realized that you are not who you once were, but you do not remember how or why you changed. Currently, I am on a bit of a journey of trying to understand who I am at this moment, while at the same time wondering how I got here. The pace of life seems like it never quite allows space for you to realize the metamorphosis that is occurring somewhere behind your eyeballs and between your increasing bald spot and less attractive feet. Maybe we are just too close to the moment, and we live reacting and planning in the day, but not seeing the shifts of the sand on our shore. That seems to be the nature of life... Once we feel like we have good control of the story we were written in, the characters and scenery change and we find we are improvising our character to try to keep up.

So, for me, I have seen that my hope for the day, that lives and breaths in the excitement of this moment, seems to be taking a vacation for a bit. Instead I feel much more secure in my long-range scope planning, my eternal destiny, my starting retirement fund, my preparation for years not yet touching my calendar. I feel much less torment and worry about where I may be in twenty or fifty years. So, how the heck did that happen? Seriously?

However, somewhere in the meantime, I notice that the creative adventurer that has been me most of my life, has taken a backseat to the practical planner, and I haven't heard him yelling much from the backseat. I think that worries me. It's hard to simultaneously know that you feel more stable and happy than you have ever been, but still feel less alive. I feel like the things I am building with my life will be more durable and significant over the test of time, but I feel less passionately about them.

I do not believe that there necessarily has to be a trade off between passion and practicality. Maybe this is a quarter life crisis, though I don't feel compelled to buy motorcycles, get tattoos, or buy sailboats. I want to prevent or lessen the mid-life crisis, as it seems to be more regretful for most.

So, my question for the day is, how do I revitalize my passion for the moment and balance a mature, wise perspective that will let the dreamer in me live out the dreams it wants to create? It seems that people typically overreact to the pendulum, staying on one side for most of their lives: The artsy dreamers that may never get to live out anything they visualize, but instead live with their heads in the clouds - or the practical, controlling planners who orderly move toward their less risky goals. Occasionally, you meet people of real excellence who found a way to balance both and succeed at creating the dream they had.

I am hoping to find a peaceful place in my heart where both can live. So that's what is on my brain at the moment.