For months now, I have been in what I would loosely call a fugue state. The pressures of daily life, the loss of a significant relationship, grieving the death of a dear grandparent, and parenting children, as they move into adulthood, seem to have stunned my middle-aged heart and mind into numbness.
I am not alone because friends and social media feeds reflect a kinship in these sticky middle parts of life. A close friend recently texted asking how I’ve been. In my authentic and painfully truthful way, I said, ‘I’m not happy, nor sad…I don’t know what I am.’” And by the end of our conversation, we’d located a house for sale in Tuscany, pledging to move there next Tuesday.
Arrivederci.
Her response “I wonder if that goes with our age?” caught me off guard. Our age. Our middle age. And then in a later conversation, another friend shared that she believes during milestone birthdays or significant events we reassess our lives, even inadvertently.
I remember my age-forty-epiphany that half my life was likely over. It happened the night of my fortieth birthday, while I stood on an event stage listening to dozens of people sing, “Happy Birthday to you, dear Dana!” It was beautiful and exhilarating, but all I can remember was thinking, “How did I get here?” Who I was on the inside disconcordantly and haphazardly existed alongside the life I lived.
That night and that realization were the impetus for the myriad of decisions that would alter the trajectory of my entire life and the existence that has been the last seven blurry years.
The middling.
Don’t misunderstand me. There have been exquisitely beautiful moments and mundane ones I wouldn’t trade for a million rubies. But mostly it’s been survival – simply keeping my head above the waves of real life that seem to roll as frequently as the moon pulls the tide. And then as jarring as a chapter book slamming shut, my eldest turned 18.
I’m sure I’m not the only parent with a child reaching adulthood who’s looked up and thought,
“What just happened?”, “How did I get here?” and “Who even am I?”
My friend described the last sixteen years as “I ran through a maze as fast and excited as I could with great confidence because I felt like I knew my way.”
But then you wake up middle-aged, bruised, and limping only to figure out that we’re all just making it up as we go. Even those with roadmaps are at risk of losing them along the way.
I think my road map flew out an open window. My once bright eyes have dulled, and my bushy tail is a rat’s nest.
I was explaining to the adults in my family that I felt like I was in this great “In Between,” having no idea what just happened, how I got here, and even less of an idea of what was coming or where to go next.
And then my stepfather said, “Liminal!”
Lemon what?
“Liminal! It comes from a Latin root and it means threshold. You are at the threshold!”
And just like my epiphany from nearly 8 years ago, I had another one when I realized that the middle doesn’t have to be a pit. While the middle can feel like an abyss of nothingness and confusion, it can simply be a pause in the doorway of the next beginning.
Being in the middle can feel suffocating and stuck but pausing in a passageway feels like a place where you take a moment to reflect with gratitude over the journey you’ve taken and the lessons you’ve learned, before crossing over the transitional marker of a threshold.
If you feel stuck, numb, bewildered, or lost, you are not alone. I am there, too.
Not middle aged, but a liminal age, that occupies both the vitality of our youth with the wisdom we’ve gained. It’s a place that holds space for both the memories of an entire lifetime just lived and the hope, if we’re lucky, of a lifetime yet to come.
Walking across the threshold doesn’t mean you must close the door behind you, either.
I plan to get a doorstop and keep that baby propped open.
