How looking forward into the last years of my life is freeing me from the inertia of the first fifty…
I’ve been thinking an awful lot lately about the way I look at my life story. More specifically, I’m examining the way my point of view is constantly changing as I get older, and how different things look from the cusp of one milestone to another. I am endlessly surprised at how different things look from the angle of where I am today in comparison to what I saw even a few years ago.
Throughout a lifespan- realistically, about 75 years if we are incredibly fortunate in the Life Lottery- there is a slowly-but-constantly changing context from which we see ourselves, other people, our environment, and our relationships to all of those things.
Of course, if you subscribe to the theory that human beings are meant to be here on this earth learning, growing and changing in some way or another (and I think most of us do, to a degree, believe we are here to become something bigger, and not just to exist), it makes sense that the average lifespan encompasses about that amount of time, and for it to be broken into these trimesters of being. Each one is marked by events that signal turning points in our development as people, and changes in our thinking process, desires, and behavior as well.
I’ve begun to look at life in three segments, periods of making certain types of personal progress and learning the lessons that we all go through ostensibly at our own pace, and yet also helplessly following a loose pattern of humanity regardless of that personal pace. There are three sections, each about twenty-five years in length, each intended for its own purpose.
The first section of life seems to be dedicated to discovering everything we possibly can about the world, ourselves, and other people while being misled by our parents and friends. Not intentionally misled; they’re still trying to make sense of the strange ideas they’ve held on to because it’s inconceivable that so much time has been wasted on so much bullshit. There is a spectacular amount of time hoping to grow up and promising ourselves we won’t be like all the other old people we know. We come into adulthood right about here and spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the hell is going on, and we do this while starting careers and families and all that happy mumbo-jumbo. And turning into the old people we knew.
The second part of life seems to be about figuring out that nothing we thought we knew when we were young was right and being disappointed in our own lack of willingness to learn anything different. And of course, during both of these periods of time, we are busy learning who we really are and being distracted by the daily mechanics of life. And we are still hanging on to our misconceptions, trying to build the things we thought were important. Because our efforts can’t have all been a spectacular waste of time, can they?
In the middle of all this angst, beautiful and wonderful things are happening to us and all around us. We are seeing and doing incredible things. We are falling in love, getting married and having children. We are building homes and families, doing a whole lot of hard work, laughing and loving each other like fiends. It’s weird because it’s all so bittersweet. It’s unnerving because smack-dab in the middle of misery, good things assault us without prejudice.
Toward the end of this confusing time comes our midlife crisis, which is the sweet spot I’m in right now.
Yes. you heard me right: sweet spot. At forty-nine, amid the endless debate over whether to cover my gray hair and appreciating the wisdom that only comes with age, sandwiched between the intense joy of being a grandparent and the sad realization I’m no longer all that hip or relevant, and right in the middle of regretting the things I didn’t do, while knowing I have so much more ability with which to do them now… is fifty.
There’s no other way to look at it. Not for me. The knowledge that I am no longer among the young comes with mixed emotions; I am equally excited and terrified by the whole concept. I wonder if this is why so many people that I know have had such a hard time navigating the turning of this particular page in their story. For me, forty was nothing, a gentle beginning of a new chapter, a drop in the hat and just another birthday for me… in what I now realize was the final bit of the middle of my life.
At no point before now did I look both backward and forward with such introspection. Or so much honesty. This could be because I now have more time behind me than in front. Maybe it’s because I so often chose the option that would result in contentment for others and sadness for me. I don’t think I’m a bit unique in saying I have had my share of joy and disappointment.
How I chose to live my life got in the way of living for a very long time. That is almost always a dark-cloud thought for a person to have. There could be blame in it. But my perspective is changing. I’m starting to see my mistakes and missteps not as finalities, but as turning points. While I may not have turned right away, back when those things occurred, I’m turning now. My mind is changing.
Let me tell you, this particular transition is both humbling me and making me a whole lot fiercer, in equal measure. There’s a whole lot of life behind me (really, about two-thirds of it, by my count, heh-heh), but I am realizing the amount of living I’ve done in those years I’ve been given is appallingly little. I’ve been a worried heart, scared to do most anything, a wished-I-could and an always-wait. I let the terrible lessons people have taught me throughout my life define what life actually is, and I’ve let it mean far too much about me. I focused on what was wrong and not what was wonderfully right about myself, and about the world, took too many unimportant things to heart, and I missed the mark so very many times. But that is okay.
I am approaching my fiftieth birthday. It’s not so very far off, just up the road, around the corner in October. Fifty trips around the sun have taught me many important lessons about the world, about people, and about myself. As I approach that milestone, I find myself contemplating the journey so far, the paths I’ve taken, and the way I choose to interpret just what this looming birthday ahead of me means.
I always wanted to write for a living. Until two years ago, I wrote for myself, and because my heart has always told me to, but the idea of putting my writing out there terrified me. Now I live in mortal fear of never getting my books and stories out there. Those old fears seem very small and powerless to me from where I stand now. At the same time, some of the old thoughts from my younger years are resurfacing, fresh and newly tantalizing. Usually, they will be old dreams and goals I aspired to and sidelined because of more “realistic” motivation, like paying bills, and I always let the many crises of life shut down creativity. I guess I saw my writing as an option rather than a necessity. I don’t see it that way now.
This goes for so many of the things I imagined my life would be but never has. Relationships, boundaries, dreams, goals… everything, and I mean everything, looks different from here.
In the simplest of terms, fifty years alive signals the arrival of my final trimester. That is undeniable. But in the terms that matter, I see before me a journey to places I actually want to go. I see not impossible dreams but incredible, achievable goals. I see being able to create the kind of world I want to live in.
That’s a damn sight better view than any I’ve seen so far.
DEE SCOTT ERICKSON, author 