When my daughter Fae, who is 23 and a recent college graduate, told me she wanted to write a blog chronicling her launch into adulthood, with its gut wrenching combo of excitement, terror and confusion, I felt an empathetic jolt. Stepping into unknown, uncharted waters? Hmm, that sounds familiar. Feeling like the rest of my life is a puzzle, but I lost the box cover so I don’t know what it’s supposed to look like? Uh huh. Wishing someone would hand me a script and say, “Just do this, you’d be great at it!” Oh god, yes.
I am a 51 year old, middle-aged empty nester (gulp, to all of that), looking ahead to the second half of my life with few clues on how to proceed, both professionally and personally. It’s like being 23 all over again, but old.
So I suggested to Fae that we write a mother/daughter blog, to share this experience of launching and re-launching together. Maybe, I suggested, the blogging process could help us along in this journey. Maybe both people her age and those my age would be interested to follow our tandem triumphs and struggles. Plus, it would be fun. Happily, Fae said yes, and we immediately scheduled some fun “business meetings” at restaurants and cafes in our town.
To start, I will say it is my hope that Fae’s initial journey will turn out like mine for the first almost-50 years of my life. After floundering for a while myself after graduation in 1980 (happens to most of us, my Fae), I settled into a career in radio and freelance journalism. Then, Hubby and I got married in 1984. He was a great catch, a guy I met in college choir, and re-met in Boston two years later. Next came family. Fae first, in 1986. Her little sister, I’ll call her BabyGirl, came along in 1988. I had a creative, fulfilling job, a kind and thoughtful husband who made me laugh, a home in the ‘burbs, and two healthy, beautiful daughters. All of this felt like The Way Life Should Be. And for us, it was. It worked for a long time.
But fast forward twenty-some years, to just about the time I turned 48, and I see myself thrown out of my orbit, losing momentum and clarity. To sum up, within about a three-year period: we sold a house, bought a house and moved, Hubby and I each hit the half-century mark, our marriage hit the quarter-century mark (and some unexpected rocky patches to go with it), both daughters left the nest for college, I took a break from my regular work to get a masters degree in creative writing and write two novels, my father-in-law died, my mother went into assisted living, Hubby was laid off from a job he’d had for 27 years and got another job, Hubby was laid off from that job, and got a consulting gig, and I tried a stint in corporate life that bombed in epic style.
Wow. Written out like that, all dry and pat, squeezes the life and heart struggles out of each of these events. Even the good things meant major change (and I hate change – transition makes me disoriented and cranky), and as for the bad stuff, I’m still trying to get the license plate of the truck that hit me.
Ironically, the event that I hoped would further my career—going to grad school—ended up throwing me off course. I’d been writing freelance articles for publications like The Chicago Tribune, and Shape magazine, but I set it all aside to focus on fiction writing for a few years. I don’t regret this for a nanosecond; grad school and fiction writing were my passion and obsession. However, I lost momentum with my other work along the way.
Which brings me to the present. When I came up for air after writing the first draft of novel #2 and decided (due to the economy, Hubby’s uncertain job situation and my own empty-nest restlessness) this would be a great time to return to the workforce, I discovered not only that my former editors and other contacts had moved on while I was busy doing other things, but that the industries I used to know have changed dramatically.
Radio and newspaper. Need I say more? These are two fields that are lumbering like aging dinosaurs toward a tar pit, and if I don’t plan to follow them there, I need to recreate my professional self, stat.
I am 51 years old (damn, that still stings), with skills I don’t know how to plug into the millennial world. Plus, I have suffered some setbacks that have lowered my resistance and made me susceptible to bouts of immobilizing blues. Feeling lost and frustrated and scattered are common states for me these days. Even so, on a good day, I’m able to tap into rich stores of excitement and hope for the future. And If I can figure out how to coax them to life, I have ideas and dreams that will carry me there.
But now as I write this, I stand poised on my launch pad, waving at Fae over there on hers. We’ve started building our rocket ships, and soon we’ll be aiming for the stars. Just watch us.
-Callie
No comments:
Post a Comment