A very old friend, we will call her Clara, who is struggling with chronic health issues left a voice note this week noting that her partner was struggling, stating “this is not what she wanted for her life”. And of course, the health issues Clara is experiencing are not what she wanted for her life either. Most of us have no idea when we are 25 or 30, or even 35, what the “in sickness and in health” passage in wedding vows signifies. Culturally, we make jokes about being middle-aged and getting old, but it is for good reason! However, it is not just that the body gets old, it is the circumstances of our lives, the consequence of decisions we made years ago, that test our tenacity and our ability to stay present to those with whom we have commitments.
Clara went on in her voice note to say “{Partner} needs to grieve this. She needs to grieve that life is, and that I am, not what she anticipated.” And as I listened to Clara’s words, I found that the well of grief I carry inside, related to all kinds of things, was stirred. The grief I need to sink into is starting to saturate me, to invite me into its depths and really be with what is here. In the fall, in this season of metal (according to Chinese Medicine), we are in the season of grief. Grief is closer to the surface, easier to access. It is a good time to let it have you.
Twenty-four years ago, when I first took a class in Chinese Medicine, right around this time of year, a woman in my community slipped off a rock along the coastline outside of Bellingham, WA, where I was doing my undergraduate degree. That slip was instantly fatal. She was 25 years old. While I did not know her well, I had been next to her just a few nights before, taking in the magic of front-and-center seats (that she had procured for our group) at an Indigo Girls concert. The suddenness of her death, and the proximity of her life to mine, was shocking to my system. While I did not know her well, during the next Chinese Medicine class meeting, my grief welled up and washed me out in waves of sobbing and tears. This loss in our community tapped into many other griefs I was holding, but for me at that time, being in my early 20’s, I could not attach much of the emotion to specifics in my life. I just let it have me and do its thing.
This fall is the 24th anniversary of the young woman’s death, and as I felt the grief well up in me this afternoon, hearing Clara’s words (who was also a part of that community in Bellingham), my awareness streaked across the years of life-lived, decisions made, relationships that have come and gone, and the grievances I carry with me about how much of my current life story is not at all what I wanted for my life, either. Mine is a different version of Clara’s wife’s “not what I wanted.” It is a different version than my other friend’s life, who has a husband and brother-in- law dealing with alcohol addiction, and a son who was hospitalized this year for an eating disorder. It is a very different version than my friend who is heavier than she ever imagined, watching both of her parents wither with dementia, and feeling sexually uninterested in her husband. It is a different version than my friend who never wanted kids and planned to live in British Columbia for the rest of her days, and suddenly is living in Tennessee with the love of her life, being a step-mother to a 6-year old, but struggling with the mysteries of middle-aged womanhood and hormone changes. And then there are those in my life who have lost their children to death or illness, or lost a spouse to dream (or delusion) of who they thought that other person was, and turned out not to be.
For me, I never thought it would all be this hard, this much of a slog. I never thought I would do it alone, either. Being without a companion is not what I wanted for my life, and it surprising to me and many who know me. Financially and logistically managing a household all alone is definitely not what I wanted for my life. Somehow, even surrounded by the unique natural beauty of BC, I long for the warmth of the American embrace, in spite of my home country’s travails. Feeling isolated and single and being all the things to all the duties and all the people is not what I wanted for my life.
As I contemplate, from this current seat of mine, squarely in mid-life, “for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health…”, vows that I, too, once pronounced, I am humbled. I truly do not believe we understand the significance of this vow in our youth. I listen to the stories of my older friends and family, and why they have stayed in the marriages they are in. Some of them cite this vow, and some of them truly cannot answer the question of why they didn’t bail during the provocations of middle age and onward. Some of them know exactly where they made the hard decisions to stay the course, and some are not really sure why they are “still here.”
I used to believe whole-heartedly in our ability to create the life we desire. If we just get clear and really, truly, hold the vision, it will happen. But that is just not true. When I work with my patients who are pregnant, or trying to conceive, I tell them “Look, 33% of this is up to you, the state of your health, and your decisions. The next 33% is up to the soul of whatever child might want to be born into this life, and the last 33% is with the Great Unknown.” It certainly feels like the scales are tipped similarly throughout our entire lives. We are woven with others and our fate is not entirely our own. While it does not feel entirely right for me to be making a particular decision in my life, I know that continuing to make this decision is what is right for my son. My primary commitment right now is to raise him well and give him the opportunities he foresees as part of his calling in life. Further to that, the fate that is perhaps more available to our determination is still not entirely up to us. What if our natal chart (astrology) simply shows that we will fall into wealth, no matter what we do? Or the opposite, in spite of being well set up in life, money will always be a struggle and a grind. What if, no matter how much work we do on ourselves, it is just our destiny to go-it-alone in life? What if we didn’t feel so damn responsible for creating our life, and what if much of it, is in fact, pre-written?
I grieve this, but it is once again, humbling. I am learning to take my hands off the wheel. Certain relationships in my life persist, in spite of my attempts to shed them, and some relationships peel away in an instant and suddenly things are different and refreshed. Middle age is truly a time of reflection and retrospection. I think, especially as a woman, as our bodies change in ways we never would have predicted, and in spite of our efforts, we begin to recognize the parts of our lives over which we don’t have as much control as we wished. We see how the path we are on looks and feels so different than that which we imagined. We look ahead, and to our friends who are walking in front of us through their elder years, and we look behind at where we have been and how our decisions plopped us here in our today.
Grief feels like a big theme right now. The world at large is not what we would have hoped for in the year 2023. This is the season to grieve, the season to cry and let the disappointments be acknowledged. What hurts? What has let you down? What just feels entirely different than you ever imagined?
