Middlescence

Janie at Midlife Slices is a visiting blogger today. Wherein she gives us a look at her view-with-a-bite of midlife AND a new term for the midyears.

When Allison asked if I'd be a guest blogger on WomenBloom, I happily said yes. Then she said I could blog about something especially for WomenBloom or I could use an older post I particularly liked, and that's when I started chewing my fingernails to the nub and rethinking my decision. Yikes, what to do? After reviewing all my older posts, I realized I didn't "particularly like" any of them so I had to write something new, but what?

I was throwing different subjects around with my husband when I asked him this question. "If mothers of young children are called young mommies and midlifers with all their children grown and gone are empty nesters, what are midlifers who still have young children and grown children called?" He laughed and said..."tired?"

He might have been kidding but it's true. And I'm still asking, what are we called? Anyone? There are lots of us, ahem....whatever you'd like to call us, still attending summer league baseball games, junior high football games, basketball, school events and the likes. Some were empty nesters but were suddenly thrust into the role of raising their grandchildren. I sit in the stands of a sporting event and look around at how young most of the other parents look and then I remember, oh yes, it's me that's out of place in this scenario.

Besides having a 13 year old at home, there's much more to my midlife baggage when you add in 12 grandchildren, 92 and 93 year old in-laws, an 83 year old dad and a 27 year old daughter with a chronic illness. What's the big deal about midlife? I'd just like to HAVE a life, period.


I know I'm not alone as I juggle midlife demands and I think our numbers are steadily growing, so this got me wondering about actual statistics and here's what I found.

(note the sound of crickets) Did you blink? You mean you missed the statistics?

That's right. There aren't many statistics out there for what I was looking for. Sure, I can find how many typical midlifers there are and what our median household income is but nothing I could sink my teeth into and really run with. But I did find other interesting tidbits that I thought I'd share.

It seems midlife is that time of one’s life when we wonder what the first half is or has been about and where we are going during the last half. Last half? *blink blink gulp* Sociologists call this period of disequilibrium "middlescence". Webster’s defines middlescence this way.

mid•dl•es•cence–noun: the middle-age period of life, esp. when considered a difficult time of self-doubt and readjustment.[Origin: 1960–65; b. middle and adolescence]

Self doubt and readjustment? No wonder the word is a combination of adolescence and middle. Great, now we get to deal with the bad and ugly of both worlds while grasping desperately for the good.

The Harvard School of Public Health says Boomers, mid 40s to late 50's, fall into five general categories: Strugglers 9%, Anxious 23%, Traditionalist 25%, Self-Reliant 30% and Enthusiasts 13%. It was disheartening to me to see that over half of us aren't self-sufficient and I'm puzzled as to why that is. We weren't given the world on a silver platter like the Millennial generation so what happened? Maybe we thought we were bullet proof and invincible? Maybe we simply weren't paying attention and thought Woodstock would go on forever? If anyone has the answer to this, please share.

I don't know who Peter Drucker is, but as quoted by Harvard SPH, he makes a good point with these sad, but true words that unfortunately apply to many midlifers:

"When we look back on this era from 100 years out with the perspective history affords, this age will be known not for the internet or biotechnology but for the first time in history we have options of what to do in the second-half of life and were unprepared for it."

Thus, for the first time in history an intentional look at midlife makes sense for an entire adult generation. We need to address the obvious issues such as balancing work and family responsibilities in the midst of the physical and psychological changes associated with aging and believe you me, those physical and psychological changes blindsided this ole’ gal and I'm scrambling to get my bearings and back on solid ground while I have the chance.

I think back to the first time I ever thought about midlife and it was a cold slap of reality that I promptly filed in the back of my brain deep enough I hoped it wouldn't resurface. I was in my early 40's and enjoying a movie of which I wish I could remember the name, but unfortunately I can't.

Anyway, this mother and daughter were arguing about something and the mother used midlife as an excuse for something that was obviously upsetting to her daughter. The daughter rolled her eyes and said "oh please, Mother! How many 120 year old people do you know of out there?"

I did some quick math on my fingers and thought...Oh holy crap! It dawned on me if midlife is a halfway point, then I was more than likely already a midlifer. I shook my head to try to clear that thought out of my brain, but it wouldn't budge no matter how much I tried to pretend I'd never heard those words, so I buried my head in the sand and kept repeating I will always be young, I will always be young, I will always be young.

I stand up and admit I was unprepared for midlife and I'm clambering to catch up to where I feel I need to be right now. I think it's imperative that we find significance in our second half of life even knowing we have no idea how long the second half will be. Mainly I want to wake up in the morning with a greater anticipation of the day ahead and not want to bite the head off a snake because I'm so frustrated when I look in the mirror and a stranger is staring back. But I also want to reflect back on these middle age years and know I did the best I could and have no regrets.

The important thing is to find significance in our second half of life and make the most of those years for our own sake.

Live your life and forget your age.
-- Norman Vincent Peale

Happy Trails Y'all!

EveryWoman And Sex And The City

I think I’m the next to the last woman in the country to see Sex and The City. Better late than never, I say. I finally saw it and I’ve been racking my brain to figure out what I could say about it that was brilliant, and profound. I mean it’s not really a brilliant, profound movie is it? If you’re up to here with commentary on it, I won’t hold it against you if you stop right here. No spoilers here though if you decide to read on and you’re one of the few who haven’t yet seen it.

The truth is I liked it a lot. It wasn’t always that way.

I was a slow convert to being a fan. I did not watch the show during its original airing, I felt it was beneath me somehow, way too popular. I only caught it later in reruns and even then I thought those girls were awful, awful and shallow. I know I’m being a hard ass, give the girls a break, they were 30 somethings, girls just want to have fun, for God’s sake!

But, slyly and insidiously, they crept under my skin until I would catch myself on Wednesday evenings arranging my schedule to watch the latest rerun. Still telling myself they were terrible, but going out of my way to watch the show. Unh hunh. By the last episode, I had melted and was proud of all of them for showing discernible and quite respectable personal growth.

Their fashion-saturated, hip hanging out, cocktail sipping, glamming it lives are just irresistible. How could you not be seduced by it? Weeellll...that’s a different post, so onward.

Why do they have such universal girl appeal, to young and more mature alike? It IS the girlfriends for life thing, no doubt about it. Where would we be without our girlfriends? And, I think it’s because, despite their completely unrealistic lifestyles--it would take several tens of thousands of monthly dollars to live in NYC the way they do—still, at bottom, they are just regular girls like the rest of us trying to figure out love and life. Making just as many mistakes as the rest of us, suffering heartaches just like the rest of us, struggling to maintain their sense of identity in the face of these crazy, mystifying things we call relationships.

Granted they are doing that more glamorously and beautifully coiffed and coutured than the rest of us could hope for, but nonetheless....

That’s as brilliant as I could get, sorry. So now, let’s turn to the completely girly, gossipy part!

I mean, the clothes! The stupendously fashionable, clothing–as-art, over the top clothes made my mouth hang open at every scene change. I’m not a fashionista by ANY stretch, but honestly, I LOVED THOSE CLOTHES AND ACCESSORIES!! If I ever manage to look even remotely fashionable, I usually run out of steam (and money) at the accessorizing stage of things. Which is why nobody would ever mistake me for even a fashionista wannabe.

The girls all looked absolutely FABulous, even better than in the TV show, didn’t ya’ll think? It was gratifying to see Kim Cattrall play the hottest 50ish woman on the screen in recent memory (Rene Russo in The Thomas Crown Affair was a close second). I think they must have put all four through a 6 month daily training regimen prior to even beginning to shoot. What would it be like for your JOB to be working out with your trainer 2 hours every day, getting your hair done, visiting the aesthetician for a little Botox, and all the rest? I'll certainly never know :)

Anyway, enough of that. Bottom line is, I can forgive the outrageously unrealistic, glam lifestyle portrayal and impossible stereotypes of beauty they present, because the bottom line is, those girls manage to pull at our heartstrings.

They couldn’t do that if they didn’t have something of the Every Woman in them.

Juno On Giving Away Our Power

Last week, WomenBloom published an interesting article by Rebecca Hamm, a Master Sufi and therapist, about personal power. How we give it away, or not. Basically, Rebecca explained that when we put someone else’s needs, expectations, or demands in front of our own, in a way that ignores our higher good or our own ‘truth’, we are asking for trouble.

Basically, the concept as I see it means putting the responsibility for stuff smack where it belongs. We always have a choice to keep our power even if we think we don’t. If we think we have no choice because it would upset the spouse, or disappoint our mother, or a million other things, it usually just means the choices are sucky and we don’t want to make them...but alas, it doesn’t mean they aren’t choices we have.

Dang!

I watched the movie Juno over the weekend which seemed like a great illustration of what I’m talking about here. It was a great lesson in keeping one’s power. Juno could easily have gotten an abortion and given her power away by saying she had no choice, she was only 16 and too young to be a good mother. Or, she had no choice, she couldn’t embarrass her parents by going through a pregnancy. Her choices were pretty sucky, but she didn’t blame anyone for her predicament, and she got in touch with her own ‘truth’ which was to have that baby and find a loving home for it.

That might not have been someone else’s ‘truth’ but it was hers, and she endured quite a bit of hardship for her choice, and for keeping her power. Her internal truth revealed that for her an abortion would not be in her highest good even if it might have saved her a lot of embarrassment and discomfort in the short run.

Thankfully, her parents supported her but if they hadn’t, it would have been easy for a 16 year old to put the embarrassment of her parents before the lifetime of regret she would endure for making a choice she felt wasn’t in her highest good. In other words, it would have been easy to give her power away.

Just to be clear, I intend no judgment on whether abortion is right or wrong, the answer is different for everyone. It’s about the difficult choices one young woman had before her, and whether she made the one that was right for her.

One thing Rebecca said that stuck with me was that giving our power away often comes from the assumption that we are solely responsible for someone else’s emotions and psychological well-being. That we have to control and manage their feelings because they can’t, or won’t. We treat them as if they are powerless to do that for themselves. It often means giving way to someone else’s feelings even if it means doing something we know isn’t good for us.

Juno’s parents no doubt endured some embarrassment and angst about her decision, but rightfully, they took that on as their own responsibility to deal with and trusted that their daughter was doing the right thing for her.

In the process, Juno learned some valuable lessons about love and the messiness of life.

Which begs the question....Why is it that we usually have to learn valuable life lessons in the midst of messy/painful/challenging/sucky situations?? That’s a whole other subject....sigh.

The Midlife Gals: This Is Not Your Mom's Middle Age!

Whoo hoo! I have to just tell you about my friends, the Midlife Gals!

We bumped into each other by accident in cyberspace several months ago as the three of us middle aged women were trying to figure out the derned blogging/social networking thing. Well, after an email exchange or two and realizing that, as luck would have it, we lived in the same wonderful city of Austin, Texas, I knew I had to meet these two wild ladies!

We met for lunch, bonded and became fast friends. These are two funny, SMART women. They are poster girls for WomenBloom’s mission of highlighting the fact that we are NOT living our Mom’s Middle Age! At least we don’t have to :)

These late 50s gals didn’t know what a blog was a year ago, but they decided they should have one. Did I mention they were smart?? They figured out the blogging thing AND the video thing with a vengeance. They were featured in MORE magazine a few months after getting started, were finalists in SXSW Interactive’s On Network Project Greenlights award, and have got PAYING blogging/video gigs with a large health network site.

This morning, as I sat down bleary-eyed to sip my cup o’ tea and read my newspaper, there they were!!! Featured in the Austin American Statesman’s Masters Of Their Domain section that features cool websites.

HELLOA!!! All this adds up to some pretty groovy press for what midlifers can learn and accomplish. I love it! If these two aren't helping change the perception of middle-age, I don’t know what or who is!

KK and SalGal, keep on keepin’ on, sistahs!

And now, for your viewing amusement....

The Real Secrets of The Secret

Most of you have heard about The Secret. Haven’t you? You know. That slickly produced and marketed, ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’/History Channel looking, prosperity promising book and DVD that was all the rage a year or two ago?

Don’t get me wrong. While I sound a little disdainful, it’s only because I’m jealous that Rhonda Byrne made a bazillion dollars re-packaging a concept that can be found in no fewer than 257 (I made that number up) self-help books and seminars. It’s the Law of Attraction which says that you attract to yourself people, situations and experiences that match how you think and what you think about.

I used to teach critical thinking in a university and I will tell you that once you understand how humans’ perceptions form, and how those perceptions then determine their choices and decisions, the Law of Attraction makes a lot of sense. Human beings see what they expect to see, we have filters that screen out what doesn’t fit our beliefs. We take actions (this is important) that tend to reinforce what we believe and see. That means you often get what you expect to see. If you expect a certain outcome, it’s more likely to happen.

Therefore, I believe this principle even while I think Ms. Byrne’s product takes such a superficial and overly materialistic view of it that it does it a real disservice.

Regardless of my cynicism around her take on it, I must tell you that I have had, and several friends have had, this last year astounding experiences with this concept.

Really astounding.

The latest is a friend who about a year ago decided she was going to get a great job for a certain state agency, and she was going to have that job by the end of June this year. She set a salary figure she wanted and wrote it on a piece of paper that she put on her nightstand.

Then the heavy lifting began which incidentally is where the Secret falls short in my humble opinion.

This friend, myself and a few other friends have all set intentions around certain things we wanted to accomplish, visualized them in great detail, we journal about them, and focus all our attention and energies on them…and then have consistently made decisions, sacrifices, and taken action that 'fit' what we wanted to see. The Secret makes it sound like you sit in your easy chair, just visualize and think about it and voila! No, no, no, Glasshoppah! You have to take focused and consistent action toward it.

Despite fears, discouragement, and other obstacles, we have kept our focus and attention on our goal. And, in the course of our line of action, each of us has numerous examples of asking the Universe for the next step, or the next contact, or the person with the answer we needed…and gotten it, sometimes almost immediately. It has been downright spooky at times.

That isn’t to say the next step or person or whatever always look the way I expect, but without fail what has come up has been one more helpful step towards my goal. And, most of the examples I have in mind are not about money although money is part of the outcome we’ve envisioned. It’s been more about stretching ourselves professionally or personally.

Back to my friend, after a number of interviews and offers of several jobs at this agency that didn’t seem like the right fit to her, she got an offer yesterday for a job that is a perfect fit…and the initial salary offer was $10 less than that figure she had written so many months ago. And, with 2 weeks notice, she should start right at the end of June.

I’m tellin’ ya….

Cougaring: Older Women On The Prowl

I like to think of myself as a pretty hip 50 year old but there are times when I realize that there are, er, a few gaps in this hipster’s knowledge base.

So, I’m at a party this last weekend and I was introduced to a new concept…’cougaring’. I had the vague feeling I had heard this term floating around but I was flat-footed and clueless when two middle-aged women began talking about it with glee.

For those of you who, like me, need some elucidation, a ‘cougar’ is an older woman who dates younger men. The term refers to the ‘older’ woman who has reached some professional success, who is fit and powerful. Get the feline allusion?

Supposedly the way this works is that she fulfills the young man’s fantasy of being tutored by a sexually experienced (and assertive) older woman. And, he fulfills her…well, I think we all know what he fulfills for her. Think Samantha from Sex and The City and you’ve got the picture.

This has some biological basis according to some. Women hit their sexual peak in their 40s while men hit it in their 20s.

Well then. Sounds like a match made in heaven!

While I can certainly appreciate the stamina and sexual intensity a 28 year old would bring to the bed, I’ve always wondered…what in the world would you talk about after the sex? Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always found that life has a way of kicking you around a bit, or a lot, in your 30s and 40s. It’s when a man learns that he isn’t bullet proof, and he gets a bit of patina and experience on him that things begin to get interesting.

Like any good blogger, I turned to YouTube for further research on the subject.



Nice, am I the only one who thinks this is bizarre?? Clearly, Samantha and the women attending Cougar Camp aren’t placing great emphasis on stimulating conversation. It seems to me they are mostly wanting to turn the tables on men and use their professional success and looks to assert their power. That’s OK if you’re into that sort of thing I suppose.

Most of us middle-aged gals out there, however, haven’t got that particular kind of power. We don’t look like we just walked off the catwalk, nor are most of us pulling in the 6 figures necessary to exert financial power. I think a bit of caution is called for.

Nothing wrong with an age difference, but I think it’s not that easy for women to have easy sex for sex’s sake.. We do tend to want a deeper connection ya know. Seeing any relationships for what it is is the key. And, that isn't always easy.

One of the women who was telling me about her cougaring experiences had begun her story in a cocky, braggadocio tone. But, as the conversation went on, she became quieter and quieter. She finally admitted she’d just given up, the young guy was being kind of flaky, wouldn’t call back, clearly wasn’t looking for that deeper connection. I got the feeling ‘given up’ went deeper than this particular man.

She sadly wandered off and I didn’t see her again.

Midwives And Doulas To The Dying

I spent part of last weekend at a conference for women called Remarkable Women. It was very well organized and clearly the organizers put heart and soul into it.

While I learned some great things and met a lot of wonderful women, one of the sessions made a particularly strong impression on me. It was about the concept of midwives and doulas to the dying.

It seems to me that we ‘do’ death so badly in this country for the most part. We take such care for births, baptisms, confirmations, bar/bat mitzvahs, anniversaries, and weddings, but we somehow have a much harder time giving the same attention and intention to dying. A lovely funeral comes a little late for the loved one who has passed on.

That is why, when a friend recently told me about a friend of hers who was training to support terminally ill people and their families, I was deeply touched. This goes way beyond hospice care. Making dying as intentional and loving a process as possible seems so important to me and I was very eager to learn more.

Deanna Cochran is the certified hospice and palliative care nurse who conducted the session. She is part of a growing movement to help manage the emotional, spiritual, and palliative care needs of a dying loved one and his or her family. I spent only an hour with Deanna but I can see that she is following her calling. What a loving and supportive energy she gives out.

Here are the 3 things I learned that are important to offer to those with a dying lvoed one, among others:

Be conscious of the primary caregiver’s and the dying person’s comfort zone. You must be tuned in to their needs and leave your own discomfort and baggage behind.

Shut up and listen. Being silent can be the hardest work of all. But that provides the sacred space for them to go as deep into their pain as they choose.

Advocate for physical relief of symptoms. This is called palliative care and it’s a relatively new concept (I have to shake my head over this) to the medical community for the most part. Deanna is very clear that there is NO reason for someone who is dying to suffer physically. There is always something that can be done to alleviate pain and discomfort. You may have to contact a number of physicians to find one who will work with you on it, but they are out there.

There is much more, but I simply encourage you to go to Deanna’s site to learn more about this very important and sacred service. We also have a WomenBloom article on palliative care written by Dr. Sue Bornstein, former Associate Director of Baylor Medical Center’s Palliative Care Program, if you'd like to know more about how the medical community is thinking about this.