A midlife reckoning

Musings from the messy middle

Image by Joseph Hersh Media on Unsplash

It began with spiking anxiety in my system. A sudden heightened sensitivity to the sensory overload of the external world, sending me retreating into solitude. An old, familiar friend that I thought I’d laid to rest many times, had cycled back for another visit.

It’s hormonal, I told myself, reinforced by my GP who assured me progesterone is nature’s Valium. And there’s truth in this - heightened anxiety is often one of the earlier symptoms of perimenopause. But I think if we’re too quick to dismiss it as just hormonal, we often miss another layer. So I decided to do a deeper investigation with a therapist.

I’m reminded of something I see over and over again in the therapy room – when we drop into what’s underneath the surface emotion, the feeling that’s been stuck shifts, dissolves, transmutes into something else.

The perimenopausal anxiety was a thin veneer, it turned out, masking layers of grief, sadness, aloneness, and deep existential questioning. What I actually needed to grapple with was loss. The loss of youth, the loss of my body as I’ve known it. The imminent loss of parents, friends, partners, pets. The loss of my youthful idealism and sense of infinite possibility. The loss of abundant young energy. The loss of friendships that come and go and fall by the wayside of life. The loss of time. The finiteness of life. Suddenly, at midlife, mortality stares you in the face like never before.

In my mind, I still picture myself looking the same way I did at 33. Young for my age, I think. Until the day I wander into the bathroom with new reading glasses on and catch sight of the deep lines of my face up close. Catch sight of a woman looking a little tired, a little lived in, a little middle-aged, and quite a bit like my mother.

And just when I thought I’d reached the bottom of the well of loss, the floor fell out and revealed another layer – anger. The hurts absorbed, boundaries unspoken, the striving, trying, efforting. The patterns of stuckness and self-judgement that I’m well and truly done with.

It’s a bittersweet time. As I sit with clients in their 20s and 30s, I feel a spacious perspective on what they are living through. I witness my younger self, fused with the struggles that felt like the sky falling in, and I recognise, from my vantage point further along the decades, how all things come and go, how everything that doesn’t feel acceptable somehow becomes integrated, over time, into the fabric of your being, until one day you look back and cannot imagine it being any other way. One day, perhaps you even feel a faint glimmer of gratitude that the catastrophic event led you to exactly this point on the map of your life journey. Recognising that perhaps it was a necessary part of your growth and learning.

I want to share all of this with the younger ones, but I also know that I can’t. That we have to live our way into these realisations as a rite of passage. There is no shortcut.

It’s tempting to buy into the narrative of ageing as decline. There’s a slowing down and turning inwards. But it’s not so much a loss of vitality, as a simplification and stripping away of what no longer serves me. A valuing of spaciousness, solitude, and silence. I wouldn’t trade it for the late nights, loud music, and exciting adventures of youth. You could not pay me enough to return to those insecurity-ridden lands.

I only know I’m glad I have been able to drop a layer deeper, beneath the anxiety spikes, the night sweats, and the palpitations, to find the stillness and quiet that allows a closer reckoning with the challenges and insights of this life stage. To do this, I’ve needed to step away from much of the busyness and noise of daily life. I’ve needed to socialise less, watch TV less, travel less, spend less time in the city. I’ve needed to connect with nature more, read more, and find the precious few souls I can have deeper one-on-ones with. The people who don’t give advice or try to fix me. The people who are willing to confront their own shadow, stand alongside me, and let me know I’m not alone in the forest. The people who can bear the painful parts of life without moving to distract, avoid, or run away.

As we journey through this unfamiliar territory of midlife, there are some steady companions on the roadside. We travel with death and loss to one side, perspective and experience to the other.

We await biopsy results, bury friends and pets, discuss wills, and exchange ailments. I wonder who will have the job of emptying out all the material goods I’ve accumulated along the way. We try to distil the years of learning and living into the gifts we can offer back to the world. The fruits of all these years of struggle and growth.

I sense a deep alchemical process at work beneath the surface of daily routines. I’m here for it, and despite the moments of existential dread, I’m also kind of excited to see where it is leading me next.

I notice that older women are often characterised as cantankerous, and I realise it’s because many have dropped their smiling, appeasing demeanour, found their voice, and claimed their anger in ways that the world would prefer women not to do. Women are still socialised to be pretty and accommodating. The most inspiring older women I meet are no longer wasting their energy on these concerns. They are standing in their power, using their voice, and telling the world what they think. I’m excited to become a part of this tribe of elders. I’m hungry for role models who have defied the patriarchal norms that tell us we should dye our hair and inject our face with Botox, stay youthful, and attractive to the male gaze. Or remain quiet and non-threatening, gently fading from view. I’m looking for the rebels, the warriors, the crones, and the hags. I’m ready to lay down the burdens of youth and patriarchal straitjackets. I’m ready to burn away what’s no longer serving me on the funeral pyre of menopause, and step into the soul work of this next life stage.

I’ve no idea what’s in store, but I hope you’ll continue to join me for the journey.

Thank you for reading. I’d love to hear if any of this resonates, wherever you happen to be on life’s journey. I always deeply appreciate your comments and the experiences you share here.

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Disclaimer - Content is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for individualised mental health treatment or advice.