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Robin Rose Bennett |
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PO Box 367, Hewitt NJ
07421 973-728-5878 |
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MEANING-PAUSE
The one thing I’m really sure of is that I’m not sure of anything anymore. I had heard such wonderful things about getting older. How women ‘at a certain age’ become more confident of who they are, more comfortable in their skin and adopt a ‘don’t give a fig’ attitude about what anyone else thinks. A lack of the self-consciousness that so plagues younger mortals. Me, I felt more insecure than ever. I longed for the days when I thought I knew everything. I think that was around 16. Of course, that cockiness evaporated in my twenties, while I was vying for success in my career. I knew I was good, but did I ever need validation. Constantly. I also missed the information and knowledge that seemed endlessly available to me. Everything I thought I knew, lessons learned, the by-product of years of education, accumulated wisdom, etc., started leaking from my head like a sieve. Had I told that story before? What was the name of that English playright? What’s the word for…oh, damn I can’t think of it… How many times? Now maybe these ladies are lying to me. Maybe they are just as lost as I am, but won’t admit it. Pretending that “you’re not getting older, you’re getting better”. Hmmm. I so liked the idea of the getting better part. Or maybe it’s just me. Developmentally challenged. Not maturing with the rest of the crowd. Desperately looking to present a solid countenance to the outside world. Hanging on hoping that the young people I might be talking to, for instance, don’t take me for the clueless idiot I feel myself devolving into. “I used to be really brilliant!” I want to scream. My insights were spot-on! I could read through any situation. I could solve most any problem in half an hour. The right words were always on the tip of my tongue, ready with a witty, or cutting, or at least appropriate remark. I walked with a natural grace that said “this is someone who knows who she is”. Not this stumbling, stutter-stepping, second-guessing mass of protoplasm. So just an ordinary mid-life crisis I wonder? Besides the feeling that my personal arsenal of life tools are rusting in the shed, there is also the sense that there needs to be more meaning in my life. Is it that the times we live in right now are so precarious that the ‘keep on keeping on’ social directive, just doesn’t cut it anymore? I fear my personal script has been written without any new surprises, twists or turns. That it’s a dull script after all, and that any promise I may have shown is now seen through the lens of hindsight as opposed to future expectation. Textbook mid-life angst, is it not? And then there’s the concept of change. Change is a fundamental part of this mid-life assessment. Change as in personal, change as in the world, change as in “the change” menopausal. The change of not only life expectations but the eventual decline of all things, mental and physical. Cheery, isn’t it? Forget about menopause. Maybe it should be called meaning-pause. When all that you know is called into question, to reexamine what to keep and what to throw out. What serves us and what is just superfluous. A finer tuning of who we are supposed to be now. And what we need to be doing for ourselves and the bigger picture out there. Suddenly, I can find my words when I use this new context. Suddenly I feel it is just a question of time until things settle back in place, enhanced by a new awareness and a sense of purpose. And maybe it starts with words. Words trigger action. And then action manifests change. Because no doubt things have to change, whether I want them to or not. It’s part of the natural process…so why not work in concert with it as opposed to trying to stave it off? Maybe, just maybe, the meaning lies within the changes ©Lisa B. Linson
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