Making Peace with Middle Age

I know, with a title like this one, you must be expecting a snarky post from me. Well, buckle up loves; this post is real.

Today I became OK with being middle aged.

It happened about an hour ago, on a walk I took around the park. I take this walk weekly, on a break between teaching and the writing consultant job. It's a beautiful day - one of those 70 degree, sunny days that Denver often gets in February (!) - and this was my only chance to get outside. As I walked, I tried to kidnap other peoples' dogs like I always do, waved to the Fed Ex Delivery guy, and said a few prayers such as "Lord, don't make me that person when I drive. Also, thanks for a manageable week. I'm starving!...What did I pack for lunch today?"

And then it hit me: I am middle aged. I am just barely hanging on to my thirties with the thinnest of teensy threads. I'm purposefully taking a walk to get some sunshine and stretch myself out before sitting all day and tutoring people.

Immediately the same old tape began playing in my head. The tape that starts to joke about being old. My realization today - and the reason for the serious post - is that it finally dawned on me that just because I'm no longer young, doesn't mean I'm already old.

I'm in the middle. Like, there's this whole middle space that I'm in. I didn't just skip over it and hop (fall?) into old age. I'm becoming older. I am not old.

If life were a marathon and you made it to mile 10, I would not say, "Congrats! You did it!" Instead, I would say, "Good job so far! Keep it up! Keep going, you can do this!"

If one of my students was in the middle of writing a paper and hung her head in defeat, I would not say, "Better luck next time." I would say, "This is a good start. What can you go back and fix? What direction are you headed? Where do you want the rest of the paper to go?"

So, why, then, am I treating myself as if I'm at then end? When, in fact, I've just reached the middle?

Are you doing this to yourself? My dear 2.5 readers who just so happen to be around the same age as I am?

If the course of life were, say, a plane ride, I would just now be unbuckling my seat belt and awaiting the first beverage service. The engines are no longer operating at extreme capacity. They have started to shift into cruise mode; they have worked hard to gain altitude and are switching gears to maintain the rest of the flight.

There is no longer the turbulence and anxiety of take off. Those first few high-speed bumps and shifts have now stabilized. We can switch on our electronics and use the free wi-fi. In other words, we can get on with it now. There is no going back. There is no switching seats. We're on our way.

But let's keep those seat belts fastened in the case of any unexpected bumps along the way.

There was not some distinguishable shift from youth to not-youth. Nobody sent me the memo. Nobody marked my calendar and told me to plan for this. The grey hair, the occasional wrinkle, the sun spots on my hands, they're all present and accounted for. And the worst part? They're no longer new to me. I'm no longer freaking out about it.

Well, OK, I am. But I only freak out about 10 times a day now. Which is about 71% better than I've been the last 4 years or so.

(Which is just the worst. It's the worst thing in the world to be used to the thought of getting old.)

When the pilot first turns off the seat belt sign, and the flight attendants start prepping the drink cart, and the relieved mom walks her toddler to the bathroom, I do not think to myself, "Whew! Almost there!" Because the journey has just begun. There was all that work with the lining up on the tarmac and the taking off and the miracle of breaking gravity, or at least working in conjunction with it.

I'm past a lot of the initial hard work. But I'm nowhere close to my final destination, so I need to stop the inner monologue - which is false and defeating - that says I'm old.

A woman right around my age just joined my writing consultant team. I do not think she's old. I don't think about her age at all. But I've noticed that we make significant eye contact when our younger co-workers agonize over their Problems with a Capital P.

So, there's that.