Lifting Weight

The other kind.

I have become a pupil of weight lifting in my forties to prevent bone density issues later, metabolism issues now and in the hopes it will make me feel strong and capable in my body even when the rest of me feels weak.

It is an act of triumph over an inheritance of depression. A victory over forces that say none of it really matters. Gratefully it has become a non-negotiable habit.

But last Thursday I did not go.

There was something more important to be done.

I stayed home, sat in one of our dining room chairs, stared out the window and wept. Not a woes me kind of cry. Though I’m certainly not above those.

This was a more of a primal cry for help.

And it is right here, at this pivotal point in writing, that my defensive instincts make me want to make a joke, so you don’t think I am taking myself too seriously – behaving self-indulgently.

But that would be an incredible disservice to all the people out there who brave the gale force winds of a mid-life passage. It is a hero’s journey.

What exactly IS mid-life?

Average life expectancy for men who live to be 65 is 84, for women it goes up to 86.

Obviously not all Americans between 42 and 43 experience the realization of having hit mid-life.

Because mid is not so much a halfway point as it is an internal knowing.

And this knowing is not attached to a prescribed timeline. It is individual.

Recently, I heard it described in terms of landscape. This analogy makes infinite more sense to me. There comes a point when we get to the top of our hill and we can see clearly the incredible distance we’ve come– the journey we’ve made.

Equally as clear is the journey ahead, and the ultimate horizon point.

But, no two hills are the same.

Each individual’s climax is different depending on his or her life.

Like the variety of character arcs available to a writer, no two arcs can ever be the same. It is personally and powerfully unique. And yet this intense biological-spiritual sense of mortality we experience, at whatever point, is universal.

The challenge is not to succumb to our culture’s pressure to blow it off, push past it, get on with life.

We like to make light of it.

We make movies about it, get more Botox, have a boob job or complicate it with an affair. Cover the ginormous crack in our future foundation with a good-looking throw rug.

We usurp the powerful opportunity for transformation with any number of quick fixes. But it feels empty.

Other cultures see it is as a second coming of age.

A kind of death beyond which there is the choice of rebirth or living as a ghost.

The living ghost model is alive and well in our country. Fed by all kinds of fear-based incentives, it suggests that once we make it to the top, we never have to come down.

The problem is, apart from defying laws of gravity, there’s not a lot of room for personal growth when you’re walking in circles. No matter how high your hill.

To me, rebirth sounds way more glorious.

There is the prospect of new challenges and the hope of exciting adventures. There is the freedom to explore and the promise of new discoveries.

Unfortunately, no one gets there without the death part.

And death, albeit not the final one, is a drag.

Beyond the kind of overwhelming ending of one way of being, there is the added joy of not having any clue what is on the other side.

Perhaps a slow decline into hell? Or payback for all the bad decisions you’ve ever made? Or complete emptiness. Probably not, but you never know.

It requires a leap of faith. I’ve made a couple such leaps. So my fear is not the other side. Or what it will bring.

This past Thursday morning I faced a different, completely new fear.

What if Joe can’t come?

Staring out the window, waiting for him to return from dropping the kids at school, I realized that this may not be a leap he feels called to make.

Over the past year, something has shifted for both of us. Living passionately in the present is no longer a viable long-term plan.

Something changes at mid-life.

And it is especially confusing because mid-life always seemed so old. I always thought once you hit that unfortunate age, you might as well put on a housecoat and get some cats.

But we look younger, act younger, feel (for the most part) younger than we imagine our parents did. So why the hell can’t we leave this horribly depressing mid-life reality thing for weaker, less ambitious people?

We can! Until we can’t.

Joe and I have built a wonderful, comfortable, happy, successful life around our shoot for the stars, ride the wave, take big risks and work hard to beat the odds philosophy.

But about a year ago something shifted. It stopped working. There has been no noticeable change, no circumstantial consequence or catastrophic shift. Yet. But the forward-moving, upward-trending magic has dissipated.

You know how animals can sense when a storm is approaching?

How the atmosphere gets very still and the skies ever so slightly darken and it gets quiet? And they know it is time to move, to regroup, to alter the plan?

This is where we are. To describe the exact leap I am talking about would be futile. It is an internal shift, perhaps small in the grand scheme of things but seismic in personal transformation and commitment.

Joe and I are filled with a fierce New England let’s do this thing spirit.

So, we have always been IN for anything we need to do. But this current mid-life leap is asking for core changes.

Changes to the very strategies and tactics that have kept us alive.

And there are no signposts for how to get there. The paths all feel arbitrary. And the only clue seems to be centered around breaking through illusions.

Questioning long-held truths.

We are beginning with food. Because for most of us, food is deeply intertwined with emotional sustenance. And control. If we can bust those myths, we can crack open others.

If we realize we have some of our wrong answers, we can ask new questions.

Supposing this…

Pasta is love, the comfort of family. And what if that family is deceased? And I give up pasta? Step inside that.

Sugar will be there for me when nothing else is. It is a silent but loyal friend. I can count on it. What if I give up sugar? And feel lost and alone. Step into that.

These are big steps. Maybe leaps.

But as we are currently stepping inside these unknowns and others, a funny thing seems to be happening.

Sure, we are a little grumpier from giving up our go-yo happy foods.

But its counterbalanced by an elusive sense of weight, lifting.