There are five basic stages of life: child, teenager, adult, mid-life, and old. Not all of these stages have clear parameters in my brain, but as I am not yet retired, I am not yet old. So that puts me firmly in mid-life. Or so I thought, until my old boss pointed out that mid-life is not 50 unless people live to be 100. I’m 53 years into life, and math has never once made my day better.
I don’t know that I ever gave much thought to midlife before now. As a kid, I couldn’t wait to be a teenager. As a teenager, I couldn’t wait to be an adult. And once I became an adult, life became a whirlwind of career, kids, responsibilities, and deadlines. The only thing I have really looked ahead to and planned for is the retirement years. But it turns out, these midlife years aren’t just flyover states on the way to old age. They’re actually a pretty awesome destination all on their own.
The girls are older, and more and more they have their own lives. And that means for the first time in two decades, I have the time and freedom to do and explore things simply because I want to. I’m learning what it feels like to be Beth again, not just someone’s mom.
I have to snap because my girls snap, but mid-life me does it from my antique rocker. This should be called the Take On Me filter.
I’m increasingly convinced that this stage is a very important part of God’s plan for our lives. It’s not a winding down, but more of a commissioning. Life experience plus the unique gifts God gives each of us plus time equals our ability to do the work only we can do.
Maybe that’s why this season of life feels so good, with so much added energy and joy. I’m no longer chasing the next destination. I’m growing into the person God has been shaping all along.
At the same time, mid-life is not for the weak if you’re a girl. Seriously, we carry and birth the babies, and then we’re rewarded with not one, but two stages of menopause? Midlife is spiritually rich, emotionally freeing, and hormonally outrageous.
In the midst of all the mid-life awesomeness, there are these kinds of thoughts each day.
AARP is not for mid-life, it is for old age. Stop sending me mail. If you want me to sign up in this stage of life, one of your discounts should be with Dominion Power so AC can be cheaper. I need lots and lots of AC and it costs lots and lots of money.
If I’m in the ER at 2 a.m. struggling to remember basic information, it’s because I’m a morning person and this is not my best time of day. Midlife patients need nurses who understand this. And if I joke that I don’t need a dementia test, that’s your cue to laugh. I don’t care if it’s fake.
When my car needs service, I should be able to Google Toyota on Laskin Road and get a human. Or even a bot. Instead, I call three different numbers asking for Ken, and no one can find my record. AI can break into government websites, explain complicated science things, and enable political folks to create stupid images, but what it really needs to know is which Toyota dealership I mean.
Stages of life in my back yard this summer!
I spent the first half of life becoming a grown-up. Even now, I’m still the middle schooler who laughs at inappropriate jokes. Somehow, God has taken all the pieces of me that never seemed to go together and fit them into something beautiful. Mid-life is where you finally start to see the puzzle come together, and it’s so much better than I ever imagined.
Feast or famine. We’re all getting along gloriously, or annoyed and arguing all day. We find three pairs of shoes we want, or zero pairs of shoes that will be the needed match. The kitchen is full of desserts and we overeat, or we hate everything we see in the pantry.
Tough conversations also seem to fall into this category. We can go for weeks or months without one, and then suddenly as the girls’ worlds get bigger in some way, I’m ambushed – sometimes caught still trying to map out what I should bring back up when a new subject pops up. What the heck did parents do before portable devices with a pathway to Google?! I rationally know I am not dumb, but I certainly feel like it pretty regularly. And I know the exact face I make when I know I am expected to speak but am out of my comfort zone, and four- letter-naughty words are rattling around in my head.
Did you know makeup is tested on animals? I knew this, and yet I didn’t really know it. My go-to when unprepared is to respond to a question by asking a question, to buy time and assess the seriousness – a little but what have you heard? – but that didn’t even help here. She’d read a lot by the time she asked me. There’s no good answer for why humans would intentionally hurt animals, whether you’re trying to explain it to a person who doesn’t love animals or to a 10-year-old tender-hearted animal-lover. Cruelty is cruelty and it’s just not right. And no words can erase or explain the images that are so easily found on social media. So I landed on the old “when you know better, you do better” and sat patiently as she went through all of my products. Thankfully only four things ended up in the bad brands pile and a quick trip to Sephora fixed that. I was so proud to watch Audrey proudly tell the guy who greeted us that we were there to replace products by brands that aren’t kind to animals.
Is abortion a sin? I’ve found that when I don’t feel certain in my answer, often because I am not really sure what I think or believe, that I just focus on statements that I am certain about. (1) Every woman I know who’s had one, whether they ultimately regretted it or not, remembers that day as one of the hardest of her life. (2) 1 in 3 or 4 women have had one, so we all know people who’ve made that choice and people who’ve made that choice fill our churches. (3) It takes two people to create a baby but abortion seems to be a sin of women only, and that’s just wrong. Whether the father is a loving counterpart or an abuser, he didn’t use birth control or tried to and it didn’t work, he drove her to the procedure or didn’t know the details, or maybe he was not around to even find out his counterpart was pregnant – he shares responsibility in the pregnancy and the outcome. (4) If we don’t lean toward empathy for people who’ve had to make this hard choice, no matter what choice they ended up making, we will never have real conversations with many of the people in our lives because shame thrives in environments of judgment.
I feel weird about x. I hate when I don’t know context and I sense that if I ask a dozen questions to get the needed context I might frustrate the child and the opportunity for the conversation will be lost. If a situation makes you uncomfortable, even if it makes you seem silly to others, remove yourself from the situation. Always follow your gut. Additionally, if your gut says all is ok but something isn’t sitting right with a BFF, follow her gut. Maybe she’s more in touch with the universe today. Or maybe someone who would never be harmful to you would be harmful to her or someone else. Maybe it’s not even about physical harm; maybe it’s about mental peace. Follow your gut and support your tribe when they need to follow theirs. As a Mom or a friend or a colleague or a stranger, we need to support women following their instincts or advocating for who and what comes into their space.
There’s no reason for this anxiety today. You’re right; today was a good day. But anxiety is not always about what’s happened today. Sometimes it’s about what happened a while ago. Sometimes it’s about lack of sleep or a good meal, sometimes it’s about overstimulation or a trigger, and sometimes it’s just about brain chemistry or hormones. Anxiety isn’t always going to make sense. Time spent in the moment overanalyzing all the reasons it may be happening or shouldn’t be happening is time spent poorly – time spent on how we help someone or ourselves get back to peace is time well spent. Sometimes we will really want to do things that will be a struggle for someone we care about. We can do them on our own or not do them – but part of loving someone with anxiety is not expecting them to do things that will cause them stress and helping them feel safe enough to communicate and to create boundaries, without fear of our reactions.
Tough conversations make me second guess myself in ways I never do in other areas. Why did I take classes like Women in Cinema or Art History?! I should have been in classes like Explanations for Life’s Big Questions and Appropriate Responses to Drug and Alcohol Questions at Each Age Range.
Just as I was overthinking all the ways I could maybe go back and touch on a few extra points without being annoying, I found my “Kindness Is” shirt in the mailbox (check out Kind Cotton!). I’d forgotten I ordered it, but it arrived at just the right time. Perhaps as long as we teach our kids the core things, and keep focusing primarily on those, we don’t always have to overthink so much.
I do not have to agree with everything a strong woman believes in to support her.
I do not have to agree with everything a strong woman believes in to know she can do her job.
I do not have to agree with everything a strong woman believes in to vote for her.
This is not just a statement about Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren. This is about all women. My family, my friends, my colleagues, my neighbors, my fellow church-goers.
I do not have to agree with everything a strong woman believes in to love her.
I have great affection for and deep love for many strong women with whom I disagree on very big topics – abortion, guns, health care. And yet I think those women are fantastic mothers and grandmothers and aunts and cousins and lawyers and doctors and students and educators and artists and caregivers and professionals. They are fantastic women. They are fantastic humans.
Some vote red, some vote blue. Some don’t vote at all. Some have children and some don’t. Some have faith and some don’t. Some have had an abortion. Some have been the victim of violence. Some have battled disease. Some cannot be alone and some prefer to be alone. Some like men, some like women, and some like both. Some are wealthy and some are poor and some are in the middle. Some are seemingly always lucky and some are seemingly always struggling. Some have great regrets about choices they’ve made in their lives and some live with more acceptance and love for themselves.
I can disagree in very key areas with a woman or have very different life experiences from her, and still recognize that she is a good person and stand in solidarity with her.
I expect more of women than I do of men. That has been a truth in my life since I can remember. I don’t know that I even understand all of the reasons why. But I know it’s not just me. As a nation, we are “harder on” women than we are on men.
We are especially “harder on” female candidates than we are on male candidates. And that’s because, at least in part I think, of our expectation that women must do what women are supposed to do in addition to the stuff of the job/office they want to earn. We expect men who run for office to do their job if they get it. We expect women to do the job if they get it, on top of all the womanly stuff we feel they must keep doing in order to really be a woman.
But it has got to stop. Strong women need to support strong women, especially in this time when women are being called nasty simply for having the audacity to have an opinion. Especially in this time when people are questioning one another’s faith because of how we vote. Especially in this time when our nation is led by a man who has mistreated women, and that man is supported by millions.
I choose to support strong women, focusing on the ways in which we agree instead the ways in which we don’t. Because one thing I have found to be true of all strong women, regardless of their background or beliefs: they get stuff done.
P.S. I also choose to support strong women who have a little sass. I have no idea if AOC is good at her job or represents her district well – I don’t live there. But I do know she knows how to stand up to a bully like a boss.
Women’s History Month has me thinking. Thinking about all the women in my family, and their stories. Thinking about women I’ve never met but who I admire. Thinking about how some women detest the word feminist, even though those women wouldn’t be voting today if it weren’t for the first publicly-acknowledged feminists. And thinking about how the people in our lives shape who we are, sometimes positively by showing us the way and sometimes negatively and ultimately showing us what’s not the way.
I have always been drawn to strong women – the women in my family are strong, and without actively thinking about what I’ve done I’ve filled my life with gal pals who are all strong and I tend to focus on female candidates in the workplace who are strong. The women in my life have served as my compass my entire adult life. My true north.
Some of my family compass.
My Mama was bold in a time when it was more fashionable for women to be quiet and submissive, she worked while my Papa was fighting in WWII, she organized voting in her small town on election days, and she spent countless years leading church efforts to support people in her community. My great Aunt Jean worked at the local courthouse way before women in the daily workforce was generally accepted, back in the 1940s. I used to think because those women were set in their ways about some things that they were old-fashioned, but really nothing could be further from the truth. It’s only as I’ve gotten older that I’ve thought carefully about who they were as people – not just who they were in relation to me. These were women who were not afraid to stand up for themselves, they were women with opinions, they were women of faith, and they were women who didn’t just think about doing but who actually did. They were the perfect matriarchs to raise a family full of girls.
It frustrates me that in 2019 there are women who scowl at the word feminist. We don’t all have to agree on abortion in order to agree that jobs should be held by the best qualified people and that leadership at any company and in any country can proportionately reflect the constituency of that company or country. I don’t think men and women can all do all the same things, but I do think they should have the same chances to participate and excel in any arena.
It also frustrates me that even in 2019 so many of the qualities that I admire in women and men are looked at as positives when found in men but as negatives when found in women. Confidence. Strength. Belonging. Assertiveness. Courage. A sense of self-worth. A person who uses their voice and who advocates…If a woman stands up for herself or her family, or if she sets a boundary, she might be judged as being bitchy or controlling or entitled. As part of the same event or meeting or conversation a man does the same thing and his boundary or his confidence is not only looked upon as positive but is actually expected in order for him to appear manly.
And finally, it really frustrates me that the majority of the people I see scowling at the word feminism and scowling at women who are confident are other women. I’ve worked and worshipped and learned with thousands of men and women in my adult life, and I think if I lined up the people who I have seen hold women back or harshly judge women of strength, more than half of the people in that line would be women.
Why is that? My initial reaction when I think about that line of people is why are women so hard on women? But I think perhaps the more important question is why is anyone in that line – what do the people in that line have in common?
And the answer, I think, is insecurity. When you’re insecure, male or female, every one and every thing is a potential threat. And when people feel threatened or at risk, they will sometimes do anything possible to assert control in some area in hopes it will enable them to hide their weakness in another. The bottom line is that a confident and capable person is someone who can see and possibly expose another’s insecurity or weakness.
There is not a single person on this planet who doesn’t feel insecure in some area or areas – even if they are unwilling to admit it. That’s human and that’s OK. What’s not OK is the many many many people who will devote their time and energy into trying to make a colleague or candidate look bad instead of working to make themselves better, who will devote time and energy into trying to break others down instead of working to build themselves, and who will devote time and energy into blaming others for their bad decisions and misfortunes instead of acknowledging their own failures or shortcomings and actually working to fix themselves. And whether it’s in the business world or in our personal worlds, the time and energy we spend focused on others instead of ourselves is really what ultimately keeps us stagnant and holds us back.
I have very big shoes to fill. One of my most important jobs is to shepherd two little girls into womanhood showing them what the women before and around me exhibited – thoughtfulness and kindness and empathy, confidence to lead, tenacity to ask for or demand or secure what they or their children need, bravery to sometimes stand alone without the accolades or approval of others, willingness to advocate for others who cannot advocate for themselves, and vulnerability to have faith. And I somehow have to do that while they are constantly bombarded with contrary images and examples – mean girls, selfie mavens, women who sleep with their boss, women who support misogynistic behaviors, people who can’t see past self.
One of my favorite feminists, who happens to be male and sometimes vote Republican, said something this week that stuck with me: “It doesn’t matter if people know WHO I am. It matters what lesson they learn from me.”
It matters what people learn from me. How I live matters because it is a constant lesson for my daughters.
That’s crazy and scary because I’m still learning with a very long way to go while little people are learning from me. How does that make sense?! It seems like the process would work better if adults did all the learning and then deposited that learning in kids after it was all gathered. When I was a kid, in my mind my Mama and my Aunt Jean were finished products, not works in progress. But 45-year-old me now knows that can’t have been true – they were clearly learning new things at the same time I was learning from them. They’re in heaven now but I still think about what they would say and do in my shoes, which not only means they are still a part of my compass but also that they are a part of the compass my girls will use. And that really makes me smile and gives me hope.
I’m a person who looks for signs. Maybe it’s superstitious and maybe it’s slightly crazy or maybe I’m just a heretic, but I’ve always thought that God sometimes reveals things to us – “talks” to us – through signs, and that the people who have passed before us – our great cloud of witnesses – encourage us and speak to us through signs. This week, walking through an antique store, I came across this little Studebaker stool.
My great Aunt Jean and Uncle Dale loved and collected old cars, and when we were children my cousins and I rode in her blue Studebaker in small-town parades in Ohio. Maybe you could say I noticed the stool because I’d been thinking a lot about her recently, but you might also say it was Aunt Jean’s way of encouraging me, reminding me she’s still close.
I know she’s smiling down on us this morning, especially her Little Bit. Last night Audrey and I were up late and goofing off and then disorganized and then ate too much dessert and then exhausted. Way past bedtime we fell asleep within seconds of laying down, without saying our prayers. Not a shining Mommy example. This morning Audrey woke up as she normally does – she has no fogginess or process of waking up and pulling herself together for the day. She simply wakes up at 110%. She spoke clearly and her first thought was a complete sentence.
Audrey: Mommy, we forgot to say prayers last night.
me: Yes, we did.
Audrey: Let’s say them now.
I am a part of my daughters’ compass, but they are also a part of mine.
Brave, Anyway 