I’ve joked recently that I’m having a midlife crisis, but I’m not certain how to handle it. I have no desire to buy a car (ok, maybe that’s a lie – I’m looking for a mid-90s Jeep Wrangler that has speakers able to play CCR perfectly while the wind blows through my hair.) But a sports car: something fast, sleek, sexy – yuck. Can you imagine the insurance payment? And I don’t even know what kind of car I drive right now – it’s silver, four wheels, and needs a wash cause my damn back-up camera is blocked by midwest winter sludge. What else- an affair! Puh-lease. Ain’t no one have the time or energy for that. Plus, it’s winter – it’s months of an excuse to not shave! So no sports cars. No affair. I’m not much of a drinker, and have a hard time putting my hard-earned money down at the roulette tables. How else do the movies tell us to handle this mid-30s unsettled-in-my-own-skin time of life?
I came across a quote by Brene Brown that stopped me in my tracks – it was like someone had a microscope on my soul and verbalized what I had been feeling for months. She referred to the pull of middle age as not a crisis but an “unraveling” and a “desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you’re supposed to live”. That’s such a good line, you should read it again. A DESPERATE PULL between what you want and what’s expected of you.
For years we listen to our parents and role models tell us what is right and wrong. We are slowly conditioned by everyone around us – for at least 18 years. Then we go off on our own bringing experiences into the next step. Maybe further our education – where we’re “out on our own”, but we’re following class schedules and tests that are set out for us. We’re listening to our professors and our upper classmen and going through the motions.
I don’t think it’s until we’re out into the real world – paying for it all, responsible for it all, no professors or parents “guiding” us, where we start to truly formulate who we are. But initially we’re so dang excited to be “independent” that we forget to think about things deeply. I believe that it’s later that we are mentally able to consider what we like, what makes us happy, what challenges us. It’s later when we start to contemplate who we really are and what we want in life. Usually that’s after we check off the socially acceptable check boxes of growing up. Graduate, graduate again (not required, in my opinion)…here comes love, here comes marriage, here comes a baby in the……you get the point. Sure, all of our previous experiences helped us to understand what we liked and didn’t like. But all of the these big flipping choices are made and done – and after that we figure out who we are? I’m still not sure how I feel about that.
This time in our life also come with an immense amount of guilt. Do I regret my littles? Never. No way. But sometimes, do I just want to not think of what’s for dinner and if there’s enough vegetables on their plates? Abso-freaking-lutely! The look I get from some people when I say I’m leaving town to go on a trip and will miss one of my littles events – ugh! It crushes me. Insert DESPERATE PULL between what is expected and what I want. But can’t there be some balance? Aren’t I being a good mom if I want to show my daughter that it’s really good to challenge her body to run a race, or work her ass off to pay for a fun trip with her friends – because friends are CRITICAL to not just surviving, but enjoying this life? Or am I selfish? Did I choose to be a mom, so that’s what I am 100% of the time? No excuses. I want to say that there’s “nothing else I’d rather be doing than being with my kids”, and a good chunk of the time that is very true. Not a day goes by that I don’t think in my head, “How did I get so lucky? Gosh I love these kiddos.” DESPERATE FLIPPIN’ PULL.
The friendships change too. The friends who I used to go shopping with, well, that doesn’t happen as much when you’re spending your time decluttering. Sometimes you end up with less and less in common. Sometimes the pettiness of gossip isn’t entertaining anymore and you are dying to sit down at a table with people who want to discuss ideas and goals and the world. (A bit of hearsay isn’t bad once in awhile, but you know what I mean.) The people who you’re drawn to may not be the same anymore. And that’s hard. It’s hard to let friendships fizzle in the name of embracing your unraveled soul.
And what about my husband? I am not the woman he married. I’m not the woman I was 5 years ago. Hell, depending on the time of the month, I’m not the woman I was 10 minutes ago. 🙂 Fact is, I met him when I was still in the no-self-esteem, do-what-is-expected-of-you-stage. Like a fine wine, I’ve aged. Not just my dimpled tush; but my soul, sense-of-humor, sense-of-purpose, drive…who I am has molded into a woman I become a bigger fan of every day. By some lottery, I chose a man who loves my core… and I’ve managed to maintain my ever- gleaming personality. (Sarcasm folks – it’s a roller coaster at my house). By some lottery he’s stuck around – and kept up with my slow unraveling into the hippie groupie that I am. He’s even semi-on board about the Jeep.
So we embrace the tattered threads of unraveling what you thought you were (or perhaps, more fittingly, what you thought people wanted you to be) to finally become who you really want to be. It’s sort of annoying that I’ve spent so many years following rules, taking tests, trying to check another thing off the list – but luckily I’ve also been experiencing, trying, failing, feeling, and molding. Molding into the woman I am today. I still prefer to please over disappoint, but I’m more and more comfortable with ordering a pickle in my beer at a table full of wine drinkers…and ain’t no one telling me what kind of music I should listen to anymore.
Maybe the crisis isn’t the unravelling. Maybe the crisis would be if you didn’t unravel…if you didn’t slowly mold into the version of yourself you love most. Cheers to embracing that desperate pull.