Authentically Finding Meaning In Middle Age
We middle aged (older) women are constantly being told that now is the time to do what we always wanted to do. Choose to do what we like and go ahead and do it. Pursue our interests. Develop skills. Learn new skills. Get in touch with ourselves. Get a life.
It's about living authentically, say all the fixers of the middle age crisis and the empty nest syndrome. We are advised to get in touch with our real selves, discover who we are, and go ahead and live the lives we've really always wanted - an authentic life - now that we are older, wiser, and freer.
Were we really inauthentic before we got older? Were we inauthentic when we stayed up nights nursing croupy babies and nauseous teens? Were we inauthentic when we packed lunches, arranged play dates and made our children's art projects in between tending to laundry, jobs and families? What was inauthentic about the choices we made then - the sacrifices and the priorities? Did those choices have less validity than our current choices? Were they not real?
What is authenticity? I believe that it is making decisions with consciousness and acting on those decisions with mindfulness, and assuring that the values that prompted my decisions remain paramount. It is about taking charge of what I want and being able to keep sight of it throughout the struggles and the exhaustion and the constant, and many times, negative opinions of others. It means authentically dealing with the hand I am dealt. It means doing the best that I can with the stuff I didn't choose. It means holding my head up and doing what I have to do even when I would much rather not.
It's true that once my children became adults and left home to forge their own journeys, I did have more freedom, and hopefully I have chosen to spend my newfound free time wisely. Having lived authentically through diapers and dishes, I already know my own mind. I am aware of my priorities. I have communicated my questions, sought my answers, and contemplated my solutions. I know who I am because of all the choices that I have made along my way.
The question now is whether I can meet the challenge that I have set for myself as I travel through this stage of middle/older age. Do I have the fortitude to zero in on my chosen objective and work toward its achievement? Now that this is wholly my own challenge, can I make it happen the way I tried to make aspirations happen for my children? Do I have the energy and resourcefulness to nurture myself - to give myself that which I gave my family?
I do know that I am excited to have finally reached this stage of my life. I can now draw on all that I have experienced along the paths of my life journey and find my meaning by recording those experiences and feelings through my passion - writing - and have begun charting my footprints on paper in the form of stories and hopefully, one day, I will publish my long dreamed of novel. And this Blog is my beginning - the first chapter to the next chapter of my journey through life.
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