Yesterday, I lay on the massage table, having a delicious ‘in the body’ experience (as opposed to an out of body one) that felt heavenly. Why don’t I do this more often, I wondered? And why did it take me so many years to allow myself to have this pleasurable experience?
Somewhere in my mid-forties, I felt a strong (and frightening) urge to leave home. Up till then, I was a true-blue multi-tasker, achievement oriented busy person, running a household, volunteering, chauffeuring kids, and coping with motherhood the best I knew how.
I had started late, by some standards, first baby at 36 after two miscarriages, second one at 38. I was studying part-time, writing a book, and teaching. I got pregnant the year I got accepted into the Masters in English program. Nursing babies at 4 am, with journal open and pen in hand, some of my best poems came out of those years.
I had no heads up about menopause, no warning, until one day I had a sudden desire to leave everything and cross the country to live in B.C. I had great kids, a happy marriage, but I felt totally lost at sea, with no idea what had hit me.
This morning in our menopause circle, one woman with three girls under 14, all pre-pubescent or hitting puberty, hormones ricocheting off the walls, was close to tears. I want to go back to work, she said. I am 52, and I don’t want to be unemployable by the time I’m 60. She was really saying, I don’t know who I am anymore besides a mom. She was also grieving the fact that there would be no more babies. We were nodding, understanding her dilemma, loving being a mom, but stuck in this confusing state of menopause, The Change!
Mid-life angst is common to anyone in their forties and fifties – the questioning, the need to make big changes in career or relationship. But to the fifty year old women who are still dealing with tweens, teens and a million demands on their time, it can lead to a melt-down or at the very least, feelings of overwhelm.
You find yourself breaking into tears at the wrong times, overwrought and highly sensitive. I remember auditioning for a chorus, feeling confident of my singing one minute then promptly bursting into tears the next. The song “I’m like a bird, I’ll fly away” by Nelly Furtado could do it to me, too.
What is not talked about is that older moms are out of phase with their life cycle – traditionally their children were at university, leaving them free time to reinvent themselves, go back to school, take pottery or tai chi. But with young children still needing driving to their own hobbies, these mid-life moms are caught in a crunch. Biologically, they are hitting menopause (average age 51), and that means spiritually and emotionally they may feel anxious for time alone, a strong desire to get away.
I feel privileged to be able to stay at home with my kids, working very part-time teaching. But there came a time when the hormonal changes and emotional upheaval, combined with the need to get away were all too much for me.
I was taking a class on-line, which suited me because I could do my assignments even in the middle of a sleepless night. A woman psychologist was reading my stories about mid-life mothers who felt so exhausted they wanted to lie down on the floor and sleep or just up and leave. The feedback she gave me was, Leave and return. It was the best advice I’d ever heard. That, and herbologist Susun Weed saying that fatigue and exhaustion indicate a profound need for rest.
It’s crazy, but I needed a prescription, permission to get away, or take a rest, or allow myself a regular massage.
So now it’s my turn, from my vantage point at 59, to tell you what the secret is. Leave and return.
Take a weekend away by yourself, take a spa day, a mental health break, call it what you want. But take it, and take it seriously. You need time and space and no-one calling you from down the hall looking for gym shoes – you need time to think your own thoughts and find yourself.
It’s not that you are complaining. It’s not that you don’t feel thankful for three meals a day, hot showers, and a roof over your head. It’s not that you don’t love your family.
It’s not that you don’t deserve time off, either.
A year’s sabbatical would be more like it, but why not give yourself a short jaunt, a meditation weekend, or a woman’s retreat? Before you head for a break-up or a break-down, give yourself a break.
And if you need help finding your way through peri-menopause, read The Tao of Turning Fifty. It was written by a mid-life mom who couldn’t allow herself to get a massage until she was in her fifties.
Jennifer Boire, MA, The Tao of Turning Fifty, What Every Woman in Her Forties Needs to Know, has also published two books of poetry and survived menopause while shepherding two pre-teens through puberty. She has been blogging about menopause and mid-life since 2007. She leads Creative Journaling classes and retreats for women at mid-life to help them cultivate faith in their inner resources. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheTaoOfTurningFifty Twitter : https://twitter.com/Musemother