In Transition

No one ever prepares you for middle age. They joke about it aplenty, what with the birthday cards making light of certain body parts heading south and losing the compass when they get there; the knees making noises akin to the sound track of a B-rated horror film; and the face having more chins than a Chinese phone book.

No one tells you that after 25 years you might wake up one day and find that your children are the people you raised them to be--healthy, well-liked, God-fearing, independent adults. You're okay with the healthy, well-liked, G0d-fearing part, and you like the sound of "independent adult,' but the reality is, "independent adult" translates into the scary reality that "they don't really need me any more."

You also wake up to find that you haven't really learned how to do life with your spouse without the kids at the center. You thought you did. You thought you knew each other, and you thought that someday when you have grown kids that you'll be scot-free and happy as a lark to go and do as you please.

And you think that the passage of time will mean that all your demons will have given up on you. They will want fresh blood to prey upon. You will be mature in Christ and so good at wielding the armor of God that the dark forces that threaten other marriages and families won't come near yours. After all, you've homeschooled for nigh on two decades. You've taught Sunday School since the Ice Age. You've attended small groups ever since Jonah got thrown overboard.

Then suddenly you find that your days are marked with sadness. Your nights with insomnia. Your friends, where are they? Why aren't they calling? Why, with all this time on our hands, aren't we getting together more than we did when our lives were dictated by baby naps and toddler baths?

I'm not handling it well. Maybe menopause is mocking me. Maybe I have been naive or in denial that probably more than half my life has been lived and I can't relive it? I am not accepting the givens very well. I find myself jealous of the younger crowd, of people who seem happy and well-adjusted at my age. Or are they just not telling it like it is? Are we masking how hard this is to have spent the last half of our lives investing in our children and --now what? Where to from here? Who is the stranger who shares my bed? What does he see in me anymore? What is my purpose, and how do I manage emotions now that I don't have the responsibility to manage as many needs that made me feel needed?

Argh...the conversations in my head.