middle age is called that because it is the middle of aging. with that comes a bundle of surprises that seem to arrive overnight. suddenly, new wrinkles. suddenly, crepey skin. suddenly, age spots and creeping-on lovehandles. suddenly, menopausal insomnia, achier joints, keeping track of rest areas on the way to everywhere. suddenly, jowls. it’s like a piñata that is slowly letting out candy, treats to relish with this person you are aging with.
we have decided that we simply cannot pine for what our bodies were like or could do back before we knew each other. now is now and we are lucky to have that. and so, we will celebrate the laughlines and the readers and changing bodies and funny long errant eyebrows. we’ll roll with the surprises as they arrive, with gratitude, laughing as much as we can, and we’ll stay right here in the middle of this aging thing – together.
the text came yesterday afternoon. it was a girl! born at 4:02pm with the sweetest little pink face. the up-north gang celebrated together virtually as new grandparents were born. and everything changed in the world as a tiny being – full of all the potential of the universe – entered this earth.
it’s happening all around us now – this grandparent thing. babies are being born, tiny boys and girls lighting up lives just as my own beloved children have always lit up mine. the focus changes, from one generation to the next, as it should be.
when you marry in the middle of middle age there are things you wonder. one of them is how you would have parented tiny beings together, had you had the chance to experience that. our girl and our boy were already adults when d showed up. and so, as empty-nesters, we ponder and wonder and guess and make up stories and scenarios and laugh aloud – a lot. we wonder what traits a little boy or girl would have of his, what characteristics of mine. these are questions that will never be answered, so it’s great fodder for us.
in the meanwhile, we adore the pictures of lilah, the videos we see of jaxon, tiny eliza on facebook, watching secondhand as landon and will and gigi and hayes grow and mini grown-up lily recites the pledge of allegiance.
and we wait, with great anticipation as new little people are expected, are pined for, are welcomed into this world. we know that with each new pot roast, each new bun-bun, each new diaper dinosaur the world gains so much more potential, so much more to love.
there’s so much truth in this. the red wine. the adirondack chairs. the ‘what are you thinking about?’ the sky-gazing. the existential amazement. the mars and venus. the hot flash. yes, yes. so.much.truth. yup. uh-huh. nothin’ more to say here.
these days, in the middle of middle age, time seems to just fly by. at inordinate speed. slowing it down doesn’t seem to be an option. i guess my sweet momma was right when she said, “live life, my sweet potato.” don’t wait.
suddenly it’s all different. suddenly, walking past other people’s tiny children makes you wistful. suddenly, in what seems like a very few split-seconds, your own formerly-tiny children are all grown-up. and the nest is empty. what’s next, you wonder. possibly a parakeet?
the family photo changes through the years. i read the other day that it was a friend’s 39th wedding anniversary and noted that it would have also been mine. but things change and times change and the family photo changes. i am grateful for the years before and i am grateful for the years now. both. either way, both family photos have similarities. one would show a middle-aged couple, empty-nesters, looking to get to know each other again. the other shows a middle-aged couple, empty-nesters, getting to know each other in the first place. a common thread – that getting-to-know-each-other – it is all fodder for much laughter, many foibles, much self-deprecation, many questions, few answers, and a lot of punting on the journey through aging smack-dab in the middle of life.
it became obvious to us that our roadtrip together, the-second-time-around-roadtrip, was a source of humor and a reason for lightheartedness. there is simply no other way to look at it. this is not the stuff of princess and prince, nor the stuff of harlequin romance novels, where the boy-who-inherited-the-kingdom finds the bereft-girl-quietly-sitting-in-the-shadows. it is not the stuff of ease nor the stuff of perfectly-smooth-trails. but it is the stuff of happily-every-after, just like so many other stories smack-dab in the middle of middle age as couples navigate through change and challenge, glee and sadness. we are just like everyone else. and our story is your story, with a few different details.
and so we thought it might be fun to celebrate being smack-dab in the middle, to raise up the questions of being there and the elation of being there, to poke fun at the confusion of revisiting the beginning of romance – so many years ago – or the actual beginning of romance – just a few years ago or, maybe, right now. to look at each other through fresh eyes, a fresh horizon. to notice, to hear, to see, to intuit each other. to dance in the too-empty and too-neat kitchen. to make noise in the too-quiet house. to make plans and dream dreams, even ones that are different than we imagined.
ours is a story of second chances. but so is the story of my friend and her husband of 39 years. and the story of the dear young man who used to be in my choir class in the 80s, now married to his husband for years. all of us have second chances each day. to sit across the table and gaze back at eyes we have known for ages, eyes we are in the middle of knowing, eyes we are just beginning to know. to laugh together and lift each other from wistful moments. to understand and hold each other with compassion our guide. to listen and discern what we each are saying, what we each need. to step into futures of unknown voyages. we live smack-dab in the middle of the middle, holding hands, loving each other in old and new ways. and cherishing every photograph along the way.
reverse threading 