What a Woman Learns About Herself Between Departures and Arrivals

There is something about an airport that makes me think about life differently. Perhaps it is because everyone is temporarily between places. We are neither where we began nor where we are going. We have packed what we believe we will need, entrusted our luggage to people we do not know, checked the gate one more time, and settled into that peculiar place called departure.

Today, I am headed toward Provo, Utah, and the Solex Day of Discovery. My suitcase contains the predictable things: clothes, shoes, something warm enough for a Utah evening, chargers, notebooks, and probably more than I truly need. Yet I have been thinking about another kind of baggage women carry, the invisible collection we haul from one season into another without ever stopping to ask whether it still belongs to us.

We carry expectations. We carry responsibilities. We carry old promises, family roles, unfinished conversations, dreams we have postponed and obligations we accepted so long ago that we no longer remember choosing them. Some of those things are sacred. Some have become heavy. Wisdom is learning the difference.

Perhaps that is why the subject of energy interests me so deeply right now. I am not thinking only about physical energy or how many hours I can keep going before I need another cup of coffee. I am thinking about the God-given energy with which each of us has been entrusted. There is emotional energy, creative energy, relational energy, intellectual energy, spiritual energy, and the precious energy required simply to remain present to our own lives.

We tend to speak about time as though it is our greatest limitation, but time and energy are not quite the same thing. Two women can have the same twenty-four hours and experience them very differently. One may spend her day doing work deeply aligned with who she is and end it pleasantly tired but inwardly full. Another may accomplish fewer things and still feel completely drained because she has spent the day carrying what was never hers to carry.

That distinction becomes increasingly important as we grow older. I do not believe our later years are meant to become an exercise in conserving ourselves until there is almost nothing left. I believe they are meant to become an exercise in intentional expenditure. We learn where our presence matters. We learn which relationships deserve tending. We learn which assignments are ours. We learn that a gracious no may protect a sacred yes.

I suspect Utah will give me plenty to think about. Solex speaks frequently about awareness and energetic balance in describing its wellness technology, while making clear that its tools are intended for wellness and personal insight rather than medical diagnosis or treatment. I am interested in the technology, certainly, but perhaps even more interested in the larger question it raises for me: How closely are we paying attention to ourselves?

An elder woman should know something about her own rhythms by now. She should know what restores her spirit and what repeatedly empties it. She should recognize when God is calling her forward and when pressure is merely pushing her. She should know that being needed everywhere is not the same thing as being called everywhere.

So today, somewhere between Arkansas and Utah, I am carrying one question with me that will not fit inside any suitcase: Where is my energy being spent, and does that spending reflect the woman God is asking me to become?

Perhaps that is a question worth carrying on your journey too.