I remember some sage advice given to me in a Target checkout line many years ago. I was a young mother, with an energetic two-year-old daughter and a precocious four-year-old son with autism. My life was crazy, with birthday parties and T-ball games and lots of therapy appointments. As I was frantically trying to hold it all together in line until we could pay for our purchases, an older, wiser woman who was behind me in line uttered something that is a familiar platitude:
“Enjoy it, honey. These are the best years of your life.”
“Dear Jesus, I hope not” was my honest thought. I did not enjoy the infant and toddler years. Being slightly OCD and sensitive to noise, I struggled with the chaos and volume of life with little bitty ones. Once they hit four- and six-years-old, things got easier, I coped better, and I began to truly enjoy motherhood.
But in those early toy and spittle-filled years, I just longed for peace and quiet. Well, I’ve got it now.
Just like nothing can prepare you for motherhood, I don’t think anything prepared me for mid-life. While psychologists say the mid-life crisis is a myth, I earnestly beg to differ. I’ve lived it. And it has not been all about my deep desire to look thirty again.
My idea of a mid-life crisis was when older women started to wear animal prints and lots of gold. My college roommate Nicole and I had watched our mothers go through this phase. The years of dressing conservatively slowly morphed into wearing cheetah print and big jewelry and matching shoes. We were amused by it. And now we are those women.
And while I have some animal print in my closet, much of my mid-life crisis has been about finding my purpose as a woman and child of God. Not as a wife. Not as a mother. But simply as a woman.
For twenty years of my life, my purpose was mothering. I wiped tears off cheeks and bought new winter coats and sat in crowded doctors’ offices with coughing children. I had the privilege of staying at home with my children so mothering and housekeeping WAS my purpose. I was one of those denim jumper wearing, crock pot toting home schoolers. If you are a home schooling mom, you know exactly what I am talking about.
And then when my Gregory and Hannah both went to college within a year of each other, my purpose was stolen from me like Lucy would steal Linus’ blanket.
I am the consummate planner and I love a schedule, and suddenly the calendar was blank. I didn’t have to take anyone to dance. There were no college visits. There wasn’t as much laundry to do or dishes to wash. I had oodles of time and not much to do. I was lost. Truthfully, I started having panic attacks and felt like I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Thank God for Zoloft. Really.
While I have updated my wardrobe and bought glitter eye shadow, my mid-life crisis has been about discovering who I am as a woman. In the past, my identity has been tied up with being a daughter, then a student, suddenly a wife, and quickly a mother. Two years after graduating from college, I had an infant son. Getting married and having babies so young, I never had the chance to grow up and discover who Lisa was.
And now I do.
In typical mid-life crisis style, I have sold my minivan and bought an SUV. And I’ve shed my frumpy mommy duds and purchased some leggings and boots. And my pixie hairdo and no-make-up years are over. With help from my daughter and the younger women I mentor, I’ve mastered liquid eyeliner and highlighter and brows.
But far more importantly, I’ve found purpose. I’m learning new skills like graphic design and photography and speaking spanish. I’m connecting with women over lunch and coffee. I’m studying and writing Bible studies and speaking and blogging. I’m doing stuff. Important stuff. God-ordained stuff.
I am no longer just mommy and wife and the keeper of a tidy home. I am Lisa. I am me. I am learning and growing and making my way. I may go back to school. I may go back to work. I may pursue full-time ministry. Who knows?
Pardon the cliche, but I am spreading my wings and learning how to fly. It is a challenge, but I am doing it. I am figuring out who I am and what my purpose is. And enjoying wearing animal prints and big jewelry in the process.
Transition is hard for all women, whether it is from home to work or work to home, from single to married, from married to divorced, from happy to grieving, from princess to pauper. Transition takes time. Sometimes it takes medication. But transition is something that always comes to an end. Transition is the valley that connects one mountain to another.
Give yourself grace in the transition. Learn. Grow. Perhaps grieve. Find a therapist. But trust me, there is a purpose for you on the other side of the hard. Be patient, pray, and you will find it.
I pray that these years will be the best of our lives. And I plan to enjoy mine with flashy jewelry and glitter eye shadow and lots of hot pink. Care to join me?
