middle ages

I feel this ache in the old bones of my body: a peri-menopausal hip ache that arrives every 3 to 5 weeks accompanied by volatility and intermittent weeping. I have to watch myself. I want to flee my life during those few days. I speak the truth too brusquely and may hurt someone. The old voices that hurt myself arise during those days as well. Suddenly I perceive myself as fat, unemployable, worthless. I am glad for the volatility, the anger, that arises to lift me out of depression. I am glad for the energy that erupts and spurs me onto change.

I walk out of the other side of the emotional hurricane. I look in the mirror again and I am grateful for this odd beauty that has settled upon me in middle age. I read my words on the page. I remember that I have worth, that I am valuable, that I have something important to say. Someone says a kind word, a word of thanks for the writing I do or the classes I teach, and my heart begins to soften. I dance and do my yoga and the physical pain is eased. I become easier to live with.

I breathe deep and know that the body lives through all these cycles in one long passage. Time is not linear. Time is spiral. I return again and again to the same struggles. Middle age is a passage of losing patience with the limitations I have given myself. I don’t believe the limitations any more. I reclaim my beauty, my grace, my strength, my eloquence, my creativity. I reclaim the desires that were long ago silenced in the young adult willingness to conform and be part of the productive world.