Thanks for All of It
It’s been some
time now that I’ve associated the idea of midlife crisis with the end of the “I
can be anything and do anything” opportunities and optimism of younger years
when most everything in life is still at least a theoretical possibility.
I now reflect that
a contributing factor to whatever sort of midlife ennui is experienced may also
be associated with the unnerving awareness that the morning when I wake up and
sense I am fully equipped to handle whatever this day brings may not come.
Only a decade ago,
I was aspirational that I could follow a plan and get things in order based on
an underlying paradigm that there was a certain age at which, if one tried hard
enough, one arrived at the place of knowing how life worked. Even five years
ago, I still believed that I could learn enough, improve enough, practice
enough to really get the hang of living life and at least master most of the
basics – leaving myself open, of course, for new adventures. The idea that I
would someday arrive at a place where I no longer feared that the day might
prove too much for me was plausible.
Midlife – crisis
or no – in my life is a stretch where time turns and twists, managing to warp hours
as I used to know them. A period of five years, which as a child was an entire
lifetime, can pass like a month and a year can happen in a week. I look at
Little One, our youngest, and expect to see a child that never existed – a
combination of her at ages three, seven and ten, and get startled by her
height, mature voice and demeanor, and the stunning fact that she is nearly 13.
The midlife
celebration, which asserts that the 40s are fabulous (and they are) may follow
a honorable adios to getting it all together. There’s freedom in recognizing I
will never know enough or do enough to be fully prepared for even my regular
and habitual circumstances. If I’m not going to work or learn my way to the
place where I’ve got it down, where I’m fully what I thought “adult” would be,
then what relief.
I may continue for
the rest of my days to awake with some doubt about my capacity to do what needs
to be done. Allowing that possibility, I’m suddenly released from striving for
an illusory achievement. There’s room to shift to simply alright, maybe going
so far as aight. Instead of hoping for some distant future when I’m really
grown-up and have this life down, I’m at liberty to keep stumbling along and,
if I really want to, stressing out. I can consider a work project, or deal with
a relationship issue, welcome my old friend inadequacy and say “Hey, I guess
we’re doing this together so we may as well have fun and get on with it.” I’m
free to say “Thanks for all of it,”