No One Told Us

There have been many phases of life that I might not have been truly prepared for ... but at least I anticipated that they would arrive. This phase has come as a surprise - and not entirely welcome. I wish more older people would mentor the rest of us as we move through life. I surely try to do that with my younger friends.

In conversations with friends who are of a similar age ... a few years younger or older ... we find ourselves faced with life experiences both personal and social that force us to re-evaluate who we believed we are ... and what it is we truly value. I'm not sure if this is what 'mid-life crisis' is ... I had always assumed that was a phenomenon associated with men and most seemed to fail the test by turning away from self-knowledge and toward red sports cars and younger women who would never be their true peers or partners.

We stand in the face of children growing up and leaving to create their own lives or children refusing to grow up and unable to leave ... in the face of life partners turning cold--turning away and leaving to create different lives apart ... in the face of losing lifelong careers because of financial problems or health problems ... we are at a loss. And the loss is our understanding of self.

When the house empties at the end of the day and we are left in silence and darkness that can't be filled with the faces and voices of the familiar ... who are we? What is our value? Where is the meaning that our days seemed to be filled with? These are questions that my friends struggle with.

It's easy enough to fill what seems to be a void. Our culture offers many choices: there is busy-ness. There are plenty of chores and responsibilities that we can use to fill the time, the dark, the quiet. As friends have said, when moving numbly through their nights: it's important to stay on task. There is the bottle of wine, beer, whiskey ... choose your poison, they say. There is the bowl, the joint, the needle, the pill. There is TV ... the new "opiate of the people". There are a million different ways to avoid the void until our last breath.

Facing that void is no bowl of cherries ... it is a privilege, can seem like a curse, and in the end is no promise of future happiness. Our small segment of the world --middle and upper middle class, mostly white people--have the time, luxury, and space to face this void. We're not starving, we're not faced with war and intercultural violence, we're not tied to the cycle of agriculture with the seasons of farming or raising animals that don't ever go on vacation or get sick days. We're free to explore this dark place.

And maybe ... facing the void isn't necessary. Maybe the various "opiates of the people" that allow for pleasure in the moment are the best choice of all. "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die" says Ecclesiastes. I'm sure I'd be a lot more fun to be around if I took that advice instead of always seriously creasing my brow in thought and contemplation ... looking to scratch out meaning from every darn experience I face.

My friends and I, we look at our selves, our friends, our families, our children - we cast our gazes out further and we see the same problems, the same struggles, the same suffering as far as our sight will take us. We are good people--we work in various ways to create space for a 'better world' for our children and our children's children. We know that it feels that our work--professional and personal--is just a drop in the bucket.

And so we're left to create meaning. We're left to shape our lives into some form of value. I have friends who are artists, they pick up the brush and dab it into color and spread it across the canvas and they create meaning and value and, more often than not, they create beauty. The beauty is there for all to see. I look around my home. I have artwork from many friends that grace these walls and space. The beauty gives me pleasure, and it is also a source of strength. Their art reminds me of the more ephemeral art of my own life that I shape and create each and every day.

I dreamed last night that I was lost and stopped to ask directions. The problem was ... I couldn't remember where I had been or where I was going .. and I sure didn't know where I was. I don't have any answers here. And I know that my answers are only my own, shaped by who I've been and who I want to be. Most days I am able to find enough meaning in the way that light shifts over the East Ridge, or the sound of a child's laughter as she passes by, or the soft fur of a friendly dog, or a rich red glass of wine that mixes perfectly with a great conversation with a dear friend. These things have always sustained me. I didn't expect this particular struggle at this time of life ... I'm just grateful that I can offer storm warning and suggestions for safe passage to others.