Regaining your sense of self in midlife and beyond

This week I met up with a dear friend whom I have not seen in over a year. Her life and my life got in the way of our normal 2 hour lunches and we just didn’t connect.

As we caught up on all things about our grown children, her teenage son, and my grandchildren, I noticed a distinct change in her.

I heard Oprah say that Maya Angelou once told her that “your 50’s are everything you are meaning to be” and this is what I saw in my friend. Her I don’t care meter was up there. What she once valued and thought she would parish without did not mean as much anymore.

She had some life changes a few years ago and I watched her lose her sense of self because someone else chose to behave badly. The woman who sat before me at lunch was not like that woman so many years ago that would replay over and over things that she can neither change or should change the outcome.

My friend who I had not seen in a year had discovered who she really was and what she was capable of and this extraordinary journey took her to a far happier and healthier place.

As we talked about our grown children and their lives, she made the observation that mothering grown kids is different. As we go through menopause and midlife, we also experience empty nest syndrome and initially it is difficult to admit our young adults cut that umbilical cord on their way out. But learning to mother from afar takes some getting use to but as we master it our lives become less complicated. We are only controlling what we have control of.

I get it, this time of change is jarring but look at this as a beginning of something new.

We deserve to grab those things we threw on the back burner and dust some stuff off and rediscover who we are or better yet, reinvent who we were meant to be before we were someone’s wife or mother.

I challenge you to take out a journal or piece of paper and write down those things that no longer serve you at this stage of your life and make some bold changes.