Middle age is so weird. It is bizarre. I don’t think it helps that I’m doing things against the system of our culture, but even if I weren’t, middle age is bonkers. I never gave one thought to middle age until I landed here. I thought about youth and being young, and I thought about being old and dying. To me it feels like pregnancy. Everyone talks about trying to get pregnant and announcing pregnancy and then talk turns to birth and after pregnancy but not much is talked about during those long nine months. The times that I was pregnant, I was so concerned about how long it took in the middle! It was a long and lonely stretch that was filled with so many personal challenges and adventure for me, but was mostly an inward journey, not something everyone else was interested in or a part of. I’m feeling this way right now in mid-life.
My life up until my early forties was a whirlwind. I look at that time in my life now and it exhausts me just thinking about it. College, house, marriage, child, traumatic divorce, work full time in my chosen career, more college, remarriage, more children, travel, leaving my chosen career to be a stay at home mom, death of my first spouse, therapy, Al-Anon, friendships, mom play dates, gain weight, lose weight, three different houses, go back to work, divorce number two, putting a child through college, etc. It was eventful to say the least. I could write a book for each thing I wrote and I have been the main character in all the stories. If I were to read those books, I would understand why that main character might want a break, a slowing down, a rest, a sinking into the middle age. The reality is that I’m really struggling and it is not a graceful transition.
My second marriage ended in a very mature, non-dramatic, and peaceful divorce. We knew we would be better apart and we wanted to be good parents and partners after we separated. The plans were made, the transitions happened and life went on. Our oldest was in college and youngest finishing elementary school. I stayed in the family home and he moved to a home within biking distance. We would share custody of the kids on a weekly basis. In the beginning, I felt a sense of excitement and freedom. I had whole weeks free, which hadn’t happened since before I had my first child. I stayed late at work, went out with friends, had dates, went shopping, or just watched television. It was new, it was weird, but it was exciting.
A few years have passed and I do enjoy my alone time, but the reality that I am missing out on seeing my children half of their time on earth has set in. That is tough and sometimes the ache for them is tremendous. I have the same ache for my oldest who is now a college graduate and who lives away from home full time. I knew that ache was coming because I have heard about empty nest syndrome for a while now, but having the double ache, I wasn’t prepared. It’s like trying to bandage a wound but every week, it is ripped open again. The twins are in middle school now and I can feel the shift toward their peers and I know that time with them will start slipping faster and I have tremendous grief over it. I don’t want to slow it or stop it, I’m just not sure how to grieve it. I’m feeling it as much as I can, but it does hit hard sometimes. I get resentful of things that take their time from me like travel soccer or track meets. I love watching them do what they love with their peers, but it puts me on the sidelines where I am a spectator of their life and not a participant. I was surprised by my feelings around that. I hear other parents talk about sports and things and they are so happy to do it, so glad to have their kids involved and busy, it makes me feel selfish and jaded that I get mad about how much time it takes from us. I know each year will take more and I’m going to have to deal with my feelings around that.
When I was very little, I was painfully shy. I was quiet and obedient. Somewhere along the line, I learned that in order to get attention, I had to be the opposite of that, so I became very outgoing and some might say rebellious. It’s always been a puzzle to me how I could have been both. I’m reading the book “Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking” by Susan Cain right now. She talks about how being an extrovert is the prized quality in our society and how most people feel they need to strive to be an extrovert even if it is not their true nature to climb the social or career ladder. She talks about how we can get lost in that false identity until something happens that wakes us back up to the truth of who we are naturally. I can see now, that the pandemic was that for me. I never felt so much relief as when I didn’t have to be an extrovert any longer. I didn’t have to go out, I didn’t have to entertain, I didn’t have to say yes to invites, I didn’t have to do all the social stuff at work. I enjoyed the solitude of the shut down. It was such a relief to be told to stay home, to be told to cozy up in my house with my family, to stop socializing. Now that restrictions are lifted and those expectations are back, I’ve been really struggling. I’m lonely at times and I miss some of the dizzying busyness that was life pre-covid, but in my heart I know that it is just because I was in the stream of normal American life, extroverted busyness. It felt good to be considered normal and I knew what was expected of me. Even if it was exhausting, I was meeting expectations. Now I feel like I’m doing everything wrong. It feels right to me personally, but society casts doubt in my mind, and social media makes me feel weird and lacking. I want to be on my couch drinking coffee until 3 pm on a Saturday, not getting up at 6am to drive three hours to a soccer game that is over in one hour. I want to go out to dinner with one or two people and have deep conversations instead of meeting 15 people at the bar to drink and get wild. I want to clean my house just so I can sit on the couch and enjoy it being clean, rather than cleaning it up so I can invite people over to mess it up. I want to sit on my porch and watch the birds instead of attending the concert downtown with hundreds of others. I feel like a hermit. I’m lonely and I’m also very content and satisfied. The part that is lonely is that most people I know are in the pursuit of extroversion and seeking excitement outside of themselves. The hard part of being an introvert is that we are hard to meet. Even if we do meet another introvert out there in the world, we probably won’t know it because when we are “out there” we mask our introversion and become extroverts for the night. No one is going to tell you at a party that their ideal friend date would be knitting while watching a movie with someone. That is not an acceptable thing to say in the exciting world of extroverts.
I’m dating someone. We’ve actually been together for almost two years this July. Dating in middle age is also weird. When I was younger, I was looking for a partner to move in with, get married to, have children with and live happily ever after. Well I’ve done that, twice. Turns out that happily ever after is not as easy as it sounds. I have the home, I have the career, I have the kids, I have a life. I don’t need a partner for all of that (except a great co-parent which I have). Turns out, you can go it alone. When I first started dating again, I needed to know that I was alive, attractive, and that I was wanted. Turns out, all were true. Online dating is a story for another time, but I did meet with and connect with people on there. This is were I met my person. We started talking and met up in person shortly after. We connected in a deep way very early on and wanted to keep seeing each other. So we did and we do. He lives about 2 1/2 hours from me. We have houses, jobs, friends, and lives outside of each other. We come together when we can and we are apart when we can’t. It is very difficult to have a relationship that is so out of the norm. It generally works for us, but it doesn’t look like what I was taught was the way it worked (house, marriage, kids, together forever in the same home). We just spent a week together after being apart for over a month and a half. It was weird, wonderful, difficult, and lovely. We know that is is not normal and we sometimes laugh about it and we sometimes are sad about it. I don’t have a road map for this kind of relationship. I don’t know anyone doing it like this. So many times I feel lost, weird, and confused about it all. Do I want to see him more because that is what I’m supposed to want? Do I want us to live closer or together because that is what I’m supposed to want or is it just easier, would it take less effort? Do I need someone to be there with me to live with and have a shared life of spending everyday together or do I want my own space and time? Is it even okay to want that as a middle aged woman? Isn’t the goal to find your person? If that isn’t my goal, what am I even doing? What I do know is that I am loved by him. I know that I love him well. I know that we have a reciprocal relationship that works for us, for now. Dating at 45 is weird, and I chose to do it in the weirdest way as far as society goes. It would be easier to do it more traditionally but I don’t think it would be what I need right now.
I’ve never felt more me and also my body has never felt more foreign to me. I was looking for pictures for this post and realized that I have stopped taking glamorous selfies of myself. Back just a few years ago, I was always snapping pics of me when I thought I was having a good hair day or felt cute. I don’t feel that way anymore. I cannot remember the last time I looked in the mirror and thought, damn she’s cute or that is a banging outfit. I didn’t realize I was at this point until today. I opened this blog and realized that I looked nothing like the pictures I had originally posted. My hair is short, thick, and going gray. My face is much less slender and I often do not wear makeup. My clothes are functional but I do not wear them to show off my body, more likely that I’m hiding it behind something big and boring. You will rarely catch me wearing high heels and will now find me in supportive shoes that help my sore feet. I used to love wearing shorts and dresses in summer but now I don’t like to wear shorts (they get swallowed up by my thighs) and dresses require shorts underneath (for the thigh rubbing) and don’t feel sexy or free anymore. Tank tops show my large arms and rolls of skin spilling over my bra in all places. Pulling my hair back is necessary for the internal temperature that is almost never below very hot in my body, but It makes my very round face feel like a bobblehead. Jeans are a cruel device no longer made for my comfort but made to stretch over my legs and hips only to require a belt at the top (which thanks to high rise trends is now just below my boobs-not where a belt belongs). Shirts are shorter, shorts are beyond short, sweat pants are thicker and warmer (did I mention I’m always hot?), and my favorite way to hide my body- the hooded sweatshirt, started being cropped. The clothes aside, I don’t know how to do this middle age body business. I decided to stop fighting the losing battle of gray hair and now I don’t know who I am when I see myself. Light hair?! I’ve never had light hair. Not to mention it is now curly after three kids, and as thick as ever. I don’t know, I just don’t know. What I do know is that either society has conditioned me to feel bad about this stage of my physical appearance or I’m really not putting for the effort needed but I kind of don’t want to. I spent my life depending on the male gaze, to be validated for my looks, to be complimented on my hair or my clothes, and feeling like an old gray haired-witch that lives in the woods and wears robes, feels a little freeing. Sigh. Middle age body image and beauty standards are difficult.
All of this was a very long way of saying that I have no idea what I am doing or who I am. I’m not sure what I want, how I feel, or how I want to be. The only thing I can do is show up each day and get through. I can reflect on how doing certain things makes me feel and then decide if I continue to do them or not. I can look in the mirror and accept the person looking back or decide to make changes. It’s really personal and lonely. Kind of like those nine months of pregnancy when your whole body and your whole mindset, and your whole being changes, but everyone just wants to know what the end will be. I’m in the middle. I have no idea. It is strange and wonderful, and beautiful and so hard. If you are on the journey of middle age-”hi”-glad you are here, and we could chat about it or just knit on the couch and watch a movie. If you are young, be nice to middle agers, this is a strange time. If you are older, help please!! Tell me I won’t be a raging inferno of heat and insecurity forever!!
