For years now, I have come to trust in my ability to overcome setbacks at many levels. I think it would be rare to find a 52 year old woman out there who has not suffered or experienced intense loss, transition, or setbacks and overcome them. Somehow time would pass. My mind would clear. My heart would break but carry on. Soon enough, I would find the energy and wherewithal to move forward toward the next goal or life experience. It was always hard, but I thought I had inner strength and will and found myself trusting in these abilities or skills.
In truth, I believe my youth supported me more than skill or ability. A young mind is built differently. Think of it as new tech built for efficiency and multi-tasking. In our youth we can have many tabs open, so to speak, and toggle back and forth with general ease. As we get older, there are so many more tabs, and the one we want or need may be in a different window altogether that we forgot we’d closed some time ago. We keep working and planning as though our operating system is still current, until the day it quietly isn’t, and we’re left clicking on something that used to just open.
What am I trying to say with this technology analogy? I can’t do it all anymore. There, I said it. I feel someone needed to. So many women I know, women my own age, are out there writing about their reinvented lives with what looks like real energy and passion. I want that too, and I think I’ll get there. But I’m starting to believe that before I do, part of reinvention is slowing down first. Not only because our bodies are changing and our brains are shifting, though they are. The emotional labor itself is different now, heavier in a way I didn’t expect, and harder to carry quietly while still meeting everyone’s needs but my own. Let me give you an example.
I created this space to help other midlife women learn more about themselves through journaling and targeted self-reflection. I started designing an in person workshop to both teach my method and provide what I hoped would be a positive experience within a community. I ran a version of it in the middle of summer to get feedback from close friends, and their encouragement is what pushed me to bring the 2.0 version out this month. But the version of me who ran that first workshop had a full house, no full time work responsibilities pulling at her, and a healthier body and a more spacious mind.
The version of me building this one has just come off weeks of moving a junior and a freshman into university, starting my own fall semester of teaching, and building a new daily routine largely alone, since my husband’s schedule has shifted too. In my thirties, all of that would have felt like a lot. But I could have carried it, and still had energy and passion left over for whatever else the day asked of me.
I thought I could do all of it this time too. Leave my kids at school, begin my own semester, and build toward this workshop, all at once, the way I always have. What I didn’t count on was how much time and energy it would take just to carry the sadness of having two kids gone at once, their absence in the house, the low hum of worry about how they’re doing, and the attention that refocuses onto work and onto the daughter who is still home and still needs me too. That processing takes something out of me now in a way it didn’t used to, and I let the marketing for the workshop slip to the last minute because of it. There weren’t enough people signed up, and I had to cancel. Admitting that was humbling.
Too many tabs open was never sustainable. It just took me this long to notice, and longer still to realize it wasn’t only the number of tabs, it was the one playing audio I couldn’t find. Somewhere underneath all the others, the grief of my kids being gone was quietly making noise and draining my energy. I kept muting it without ever tracking it down. I’m learning to close a few tabs on purpose now, and to actually go looking for that sound instead of tuning it out. I need to give myself time to feel what these past few weeks have held instead of running past them toward the next thing as I might have done in the past.
For now, I’m building back the habits that keep my body and mind healthy and calm. I haven’t given up building toward the next workshop. I’m just moving toward it more slowly, so that when the time comes, I have energy left over for it and everyone I love; including myself.
Journal Prompt:
What have you had playing in the background this week that might need time, space, or attention? What would the result be if you left it unattended?
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