Life is a gift in some ways, joyous and full of beautiful surprises…but life can also be tragic and full of too many finalities and loss.  As I get older, I realize that I live somewhere in that tension between gratitude and agony; because I know better than not to.  I’ve learnt that life has these two polarized sides of complete joy and hell; and if I don’t stay on ready, I could be blindsided.  To me, this is a condition of middle age, this constant fear making me stay guarded.  Being “on ready” isn’t just awareness, it’s a state of mind/body/soul, it’s a tension that the back of my shoulders know well, a restlessness that interrupts my once full night sleeps, and a sort of resistance that tempers my once wildly open heart.

I don’t feel limitless anymore. But having said that, I don’t feel as powerless as I use to.  I’m somewhere in between.  Maybe that is the irony of age.  When I was younger I felt limitless but believed I was powerless (whether it was lack of freedom, lack of resources, lack of capacity or lack of knowledge) – but now throughout my life, as I’ve aged, I’ve collected those things I once lacked and lost the things I once had…my wallet and schedule are full, but surely my dreams are much smaller.

I’ve heard people talk about midlife malaise.  I know some people experience that as a feeling of tiredness, defeat, or helplessness – while others mark this time with outrageous attempts to counter these feelings with a red convertible or young girlfriend to revive old bones.

For me though, midlife malaise can be best described as a kind of grief.  Grieving the things I once had and know I will no longer have or hold again.  You know grieving tangible things like my parents, or the good ol’ days of having my sister a drive away – or grieving intangible things like youthfulness and innocence.  As you get older, you learn how very little control you actually have over anything, how vulnerable we actually are to the different conditions of life and how  by our forties, we end up so far from where we began.

For me, midlife malaise is exactly this, being so far away from where I began, from home– and I don’t mean home as like a physical place.  I mean home as in that space in our souls that houses exactly who we are – being home was that time when I knew myself and experienced myself freely and authentically.  Well before my experiences perverted and changed my understanding of myself and the world.

Home for me, had once felt like safety and hope – an idealistic perception that things always worked out exactly as they were meant to and that love conquered all things.  Home, for me, was a taken for granted security in knowing who I was, what I loved and where I belonged.

But sure, life happens and the way we process those events, what they mean to us and how we digest them changes everything. Best case scenario is we grow, but really, who at a young age really understands and has the tools to properly process life, change and loss?  So instead of building, the experiences are diminishing.  That once taken for granted security and wholeness becomes super thin, fragmented and compartmentalized.  My coping mechanism and response to change or loss was to flee.  I found loss so devastating when I was emotionally immature, that when change or loss would come calling again throughout my life, I would run the other way.  I would barely pack and quickly bolt and seek refuge in other safe houses/friends/relationships/jobs/family members.  As a more sane and emotionally mature adult, I look back and can see how my patterns and default reactions to loss have morphed – I might run or I might snap into survival mode – I might try and be in control, control the narrative, or if I wasn’t in control douse the issue with gas and start a bonfire – I’d make the loss justifiable, or appear, even if only to myself, like I chose it or was better off for it… But if all that failed, I would run, pack my bags and flee again – replant elsewhere or wander until I could find a place to rest.

And this all has somewhat worked for me throughout my life – until last year.  And it’s funny how orchestrated life can be when we look back; the string of events that happened in such a way that brought a very particular outcome and understanding – a meant to be’ish kinda thing.

Recently a girlfriend off the cuff mentioned how “resistant” I can be to things…and that resonated with me at the time, even though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  What was I resistant to?

Resistance for me, and the way it shows up in my life – is being wishy washy- sorta in, sorta out – I sorta love people then I sorta don’t –  non committal – lack of diving in – lots of maybes and kind ofs, lack of allowing people into my depths, or engage too much – instead I straddle the lines – spread my eggs amoungst different baskets – options, versatility, outs…resistance for me then isn’t actually resistance, it’s more of keeping a safe distance – self protecting by staying on the fray of things. (and don’t get me wrong, of course there are people who have mined their way through my barriers to really connect with me but those are the exception not the rule).

I wasn’t really aware of this resistance or keeping a safe distance until I lost my Mom last year.  Even though I don’t realize I’m choosing it, I see where I shut down, how I try and flee and how hard it is for me to let people into it.  To date, following her funeral, I have not yet been back to the grave site.   Even though I wouldn’t look at why I wasn’t going back,  I know, deep down inside, is that belief, that the loss will be something I won’t be able to cope with because intuitively I know that my usual antics of dealing with loss won’t work in that moment of seeing her precious name etched onto a head stone…where could I possibly run, what home could I even attempt to recreate or seek refuge in that could shelter me from her absence? Even still, I know I am getting tired of running.

The spiritual condition of my forties is the grief I feel in knowing that I have unknowingly travelled a long way from my home.  But throughout this last year and through my Mom’s death, I recognize how I long to reclaim that sense of home again.  I will know that feeling of familiarity, comfort, security, hope and peace within myself because I knew it so intimately before – I will recognize the old pictures I once hung and will dust off those treasured valuables again – midlife for me isn’t going to be malaise – midlife for me is going to be spiritual warfare – battling against living in this spirit of fear I’ve grown so accustomed to and revisiting the way I’ve dealt with loss throughout my life and what loss actually means.  I will deconstruct it all.

Loss devastated me a million years ago, and since then, I believed it always would.  But then my Mom taught me better with her death.  Truthfully, I would experience losing her a thousand times if it meant experiencing the richness of her relationship a thousand times.  No wonder cliches like “it’s better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all” exist.  I’m obviously not reinventing the wheel, but for the first time I really get it.  The love and joy I felt for my Mom is like nothing I could have ever manufactured or imagined.  My life was richer because of my Mom, and because of her life, her example and her sickness, I honestly became a better version of myself without my own construct or doing – she happened to me and bettered me…and though I lost her, I can’t deny how impacted I am by her in such positive ways.  How crazy is it, that even though “loss” sounds like loss, it can actually provide our greatest gains?  Maybe my lesson is not to fear loss or live in this spirit of fear but to trust life and God instead.  We never stop learning.  What seems definable and plain can take on such new meaning when we readjust the way we look at it, and thank God for the things that hone our eyesight or shift our lens.  I guess such is the mystery, irony and beauty of life whatever age we are at. <3