Transitions

After yesterday's post, I began to wonder if I'm going through a good old-fashioned mid-life crisis. The thought surprised me since typically one thinks of men as the ones who go through a mid-life crisis, buying a sports car or a motorcycle. But as the feminist movement revealed, women often inhabit the space traditionally occupied by men.

So I headed to the Internet and searched for "mid-life women" which returned 1,240,000 hits. Clearly this subject is not a new one. I clicked on a link titled "Women turn midlife on its head" which sent me to a Seattle Post-Itelligencer newspaper article from 2005 (hmmm, I used to live near Seattle). I chose this link since I was feeling turned on my head and wanted to learn how other women are coping. It's a good article and I recommend it to anyone experiencing a transition like this.

I identified with the report that women in mid-life are increasingly returning to school, but for me, there's something more going on, something on a deeper level. Sue Shellenbarger, a Wall Street Journal columnist, is quoted as saying "People think it's like a grease fire in a frying pan -- you put it out and it's over. What I think is, it's like an earthquake changing the terms of your life." An earthquake is more like what I went through recently. After an earthquake, you pick up the pieces and you just want things to settle down.

Another woman described how "it's the little things that I discovered that I treasure like sleeping at night, walking my dog, enjoying a second cup of coffee and hanging out with friends." After a crisis, you savor the simple pleasures and begin to look at the world differently, feeling anxious and excited in the knowledge that nothing will ever be the same again.

This mid-life time is a time of transition, not crisis. However, what can be challenging is dealing with a crisis during this transitional time when the landscape has changed so much. The beauty is in knowing that I am the landscaper.