Midlife Crisis? Or Cresting the Midlife Wave?
“We cannot live the second half of our lives in the same way as we lived the first.” Carl Jung wrote this sentence in his famous paper ‘The Stages of Life’ and it has been ruminating in my mind for some time now as I embark on - ‘midlife’.
As I countdown my last days in my thirties. I know I’m entering the decade that sits between “young” and “old”. Typically midlife is known for being a difficult decade – the one characterised by the midlife crisis, the public breakdowns and internally a time of great uncertainty as we assess what we’ve done with our lives so far, where all these grey hair and wrinkles have suddenly popped up from and what on earth we are going to do next to ensure we are really living our lives!
Whether we are consciously thinking about our own ‘midlife’ transition or not, it becomes impossible not to notice the transition happening around us. Do you see it too? Friends and colleagues trying to shed the skin they are in, suffocating in the life they have built or struggling to stay exactly who they have always been, even if that person clearly doesn’t exist anymore.
I think Midlife is challenging because to navigate it successfully we have to say goodbye to versions of ourselves who we have loved, goodbye to versions of ourselves that we imagined would appear that have never eventuated, and often we are forced to acknowledge and farewell comfort behaviours that have protected us and fed into the “persona” that we have created but no longer serve who we want to be. And we must say these goodbyes now because if we don’t do it before the second half begins then we risk living our entire lives not being ourselves and prioritising others happiness over our own.
Suddenly things that have always appeared certain and solid and rational are being called in to question. There are more divorce parties to attend than wedding gifts to buy; more sea changes and farewells than housewarmings; more resignations and 180 degree career changes than promotions - Big life moves are being made as us mid-lifers realise that time is creeping up on us – shit is getting real and it’s time step out from behind the mask of convention and who we think we should be and risk developing an identity that strips back all the pretending and performing to uncover who we really are – because if not now, when?
At nearly forty I have already farewelled many versions of myself. With four young children I am no longer the girl who can spend every dollar on a plane ticket (also covid), I am no longer the girl who climbs Ice Mountains or bungy jumps on a whim, or wears surf brands. I no longer am the girl who bounces back effortlessly from baby weight, or an indulgent weekend. I have parted ways with the career obsessed work late into the evening girl, the young sleep deprived mum who rocked babies long into the night, the breast feeder, the baby wearer and a hundred other versions of myself but until now I have never taken stock, never said goodbye properly because I have always been trying to do more, be more, prove myself in different ways. It is nostalgic saying goodbye to many of these versions of myself knowing I’ll never see them again, but in cresting the midlife hill and saying all these goodbyes I have found there is a heady mix of pleasure and excitement simmering inside me because I see an opportunity to shed the me who sandwiches herself between everyone else’s needs and leaves little left for myself. I can say goodbye to the me who looks for self-worth in pleasing everyone and I can finally acknowledge the woman who knows how to face hard things with grace, the woman who embraces change and being different – because it’s ok to admit I actually don’t want to be like everyone else because falling in line with the norm actually make me feel suffocated.
Maybe midlife just looks like a crisis because things are changing and change can look messy when it’s in motion but perhaps midlife is actually more of a reckoning, a time to unravel all of the pretending and performing and mechanisms that we have put in place to protect us from feeling inadequate – all the work we have done to build a certain solid identity that is actually a version of ourselves we now feel constricted by. Midlife is no doubt likely to bring big challenges, but things will be gained as well as lost, and as I am shedding all the things I “need to be” and “should be” I feel like I am freeing myself to embrace who I really am. As I coast over the crest of midlife I’m looking forward to meeting this peeled back version of me - because I don’t know about you, but I’ve always thought that cresting the hill and anticipating the downhill ride is the most exciting part of any ride I’ve ever been on.
