So, This is Mid Life

Today I am enjoying a rare moment of peace in my otherwise busier-than-I’d-like life. It’s a pleasure to sip my morning coffee, catch up on my email and browse my favorite blogs. It's got me thinking on life as it is unfolding in these middle years.


I have been thrown so many fast balls in the last decade of my life that I would have to write a novel to cover them all. I just may do that one day, but apparently, today or any day in the foreseeable future isn’t the one.

In the past three years, my (second) husband and I have lost six immediate family members, two of those being a son and an almost son-in-law. I have stopped staying that things can’t get any worse, because life has shown me that it can always be worse.

Friends have asked me how I managed. Managed what? To keep living? To keep my sanity? To keep any sense of hope or joy? My answer is quite pragmatic. What choice do I have? I believe Shakespeare said it much better than I –
“To be, or not to be, that is the Question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to sufferThe Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,
Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to dye, to sleepeNo more;
and by a sleepe, to say we endThe Heart-ake,
and the thousand Naturall shockesThat Flesh is heyre too?”

Despite any religious or moral convictions the truth is, living is a choice. Moreso how I choose to live this life with all its ups and downs, is my choice. I have thus far come through the assault of outrageous fortune a bit more solemn but a whole lot stronger, and still hopeful.

When this year’s calendar turned to January I began the new year with a plan. That may have been my first mistake. My father’s estate was settled and I knew what I was going to do with his gift to me. Finally, I was going to start living my dream. With the money from my parent's labors in life, I could pay off my mortgage, quit my day job and become a full time writer. The completion of my novel was so close I could feel the heft of it in my hands. My father, author of three published memoirs, would approve.

Then fickle fortune slapped me in the face again. My husband became severely ill and disabled. Oh, I’d still be able to pay the mortgage off (thank you Mom and Dad, for finding a way to take care of me even in your death), but far from retiring, I am now looking for full-time work that will offer medical benefits and (future – far in the future) retirement security.
So this is midlife.