Inc.
Picture Credits: AARP
Jessica Stillman reflects on her 45th birthday anxieties—career regrets, distance from loved ones, and tradeoffs of expat life. Relief came from nine words a therapist once shared: “Midlife is all about holding the tension of opposites.” Accepting both good and bad, she argues, brings peace to midlife struggles.
These 9 Words From a Therapist Cured My Midlife Blues
Author: Jessica Stillman
I’m turning 45 this week and, while I wouldn’t say I’m in the midst of a midlife crisis, I would admit that, like a lot of 40 somethings, I spend more time than I’d like worrying whether I’ve ended up in the right place in life.
Don’t get me wrong. Objectively I know I have nothing to complain about. I have a strong marriage, an amazing kid, and a business that utilizes my talents and allows me the flexibility to enjoy my family.
But there are always buts. I also live 5,000 miles from my closest friends and family. Expat life might look glamorous on social media. And it does have real advantages. In large part thanks to the lifestyle here in Cyprus, we enjoy good physical and financial health (knock on wood).
Living so far from your comfort zone is often hard and lonely though. Also, career limiting. Like many people my age, I wonder if I should have made more strategic and ambitious decisions. Could I have made a greater impact if I had chosen other paths?
All in all it makes for a bittersweet birthday — thrilled for another spin around the sun with the people I love, but nagged by regrets and worries.
I’ve been chewing over these questions for years (and writing about the process), so I wasn’t super hopeful of finding anything new to help lift the fog. That was until I read nine words from a therapist that gave me a whole new perspective on my midlife blues.
I’m far from alone in my midlife blues
I know I’m far from alone in my midlife malaise. Scientists have long documented a dip in average happiness levels in our 40s and 50s. These days the rising mental health issues of the young means this “U-shaped happiness curve” is flattening out. But the fact remains that your middle years can be a particularly fraught time.
Plenty of anecdotal evidence supports science on this. Most of us know at least a few people who slammed into midlife like a speeding racecar, causing similar levels of destruction. Less dramatically, quiet conversations with friends suggest many share my questions and doubts.
So did a recent post I came across on the blog Cup of Jo by writer Abigail Rasminsky. In it she catalogues the gap between where she hoped she’d be by midlife and where she actually ended up.
“There are so many other things that haven’t turned out as planned: my marriage is — like most — more complicated than ‘I do.’ I’m not always satisfied with how far along I am in my career, in part because I’ve done most of the childcare in our home. Because I live in L.A., I spend much of my life in the car. My aging parents and most of my oldest friends live a continent away,” she writes.
What if there’s no way out of the midlife Kobayashi Maru?
Just reading about Rasminsky’s similar struggles made me feel less alone. But what really moved me about her piece was the advice that helped her feel better about her midlife blahs. It came from her therapist and it was all of nine words long.
“Midlife is all about holding the tension of opposites,” Rasminsky reports her therapist telling her.
Why was that so helpful to me? Much of my rumination focuses on trying to resolve the tensions between the good and the less good aspects of my life. That’s incredibly tricky. If I try to improve one thing, I’ll mess up another.
Moving closer to family is incompatible with my husband’s career. Taking another tack with my business might make strategic sense but ruin my childcare situation.
If you’ve reached this life stage, this probably sounds familiar. The specifics are unique to me. But few of us reach our 40s without facing these sort of tradeoffs. They nag at us because, like Captain Kirk facing the Kobayashi Maru test, we think there must be a way to win this unwinnable game. If we’re just clever or determined enough we can somehow figure out how to get all the good outcomes and none of the hard ones.
But real life isn’t a sci-fi blockbuster. What if we just gave up that goal? What if we do as Rasminsky’s therapist suggests and accept that there is no escaping this tension of opposites? I think they’d become a lot lighter to carry.
Making peace with my tradeoffs
“Unlike in our 20s, when it’s all about the future — getting the job, dating, building a career and/or a family, traveling, doing good in the world — this stage is all about holding the light and the dark, the good and the bad, at once,” writes Rasminsky.
For me that means accepting that our Mediterranean lifestyle comes at the cost of living an uncomfortable distance from many people I love. (Also learning a stupid number of Greek verb endings).
For you it might be about the tension between long hours away from home and long-term benefits to your family of growing your business. Or maybe it’s a deliberate choice to build something smaller scale and leave money on the table but emphasize community and sustainability.
Our choices in midlife, unlike the dreams of our youth, usually bring both positive and negative consequences. We can exhaust ourselves struggling against this truth. Or we can offer ourselves the peace of accepting it.
“Both are okay!” insists Rasminsky, calling this her new “motto to live by in midlife.”
It’s a new motto I think I am going to give myself as a birthday present this year too. Maybe it will bring me — and you — a little more peace of mind during midlife.
Credits: TCA, LLC.