The mid-life crisis isn’t really a crisis, to me it is more of a review. My midlife review started early, about a year after we completed our family. I had spent almost four decades working so hard to build the life I dreamed about and then one day I woke up and realized that I still wanted more.
I couldn’t help but notice how profoundly different a human I had been since I entered motherhood. I wrote almost 150 pages of a book trying to sort out the phases of motherhood in my head and heart. I did tons of research on the psychological and emotional changes that a woman goes through when she becomes a mother. The transformation of my new identity and my new life. There is actually a name for this phase, it's called Matrescence. I questioned: was it the grief of losing my father and mother-in-law the month the twins were born? Was it undiagnosed postpartum depression? Was it because I am not as good being a mama of three as I was being a mama of one? Was it the excruciating pain of needing a hip replacement? Was it because I was running a family business, alone? Was it because I had decision fatigue and an overwhelming list of responsibilities as the primary parent?
I longed for a moment of peace when I could quiet my brain and stop my inner critic from ripping me to shreds. I wondered if other mamas feel this way. So, I launched this column in September of 2021 and set out on a mission to let mamas know that they aren’t alone. Afterall, we teach (or write about) what we need to learn.
I think this is what an early midlife review feels like. Questions started to circulate in my head like; what’s my purpose, what have I chosen in my daily life subconsciously that no longer serves me; and who do I want to be now that I am grown up? My husband’s company is in a great place for me to exit. And while it will be bittersweet, it is time. This has caused me to feel like a 12 year old again. That place in your life where you are no longer a little girl and not yet a teenager. You are both sad and excited about what is ahead and feel this tremendous amount of responsibility to get it right.
My husband randomly attended a book signing for Chip Connely’s, Learning to Love Midlife. He brought the book home and I immediately knew it was a sign, and gift, from the universe to dive in. I feel grateful to be in the earliest stage of my midlife review still able to really frame my paradigm about what it means to be an almost 44-year-old woman raising three daughters and married for almost 16 years. I am feeling excited to choose, wisely, what this next stage of my profession/career will look like. Knowing what I value most this time around.