Things Change

Lying in bed on a recent morning, hoping to fall back asleep after a wee hour trip to the bathroom, I heard the rain turn to snow. I rested with a restless mind, listening to the peaceful pitter-patter before it faded into silence. Things change.

So much has changed in the last eight months. We all adjust, struggle in our relative ways, and wait for things to change again. As the weather turns cold, the election looms (hoping for change there, not that it will solve every worry) and I search for what’s next, I savor the quiet moments alone and dive into this. Caught between change and stillness, I write.

The snow made me remember another white glazed morning in late April when we wished the cold season would just turn already, and I wrote my quarantine moment of reflection that became my first blog post. Like everyone, our family was navigating the first phase of the lock-down, confronting the emotions of what was never before imagined, each doing our best to ride the waves. We came together, found or own spaces, agitated each other, comforted each other, and found much love and laughter at the dinner table. That was back when we all thought that maybe there would be only one phase of this damn thing and hoped that it couldn’t take more than three or four months to find a way out, could it? We had each other we did our best to settle into the murky newness. We reminded ourselves that change is constant and can lead to better things.

Two years before everything changed in 2020, I felt the changes of becoming a woman over 50. In the first months of my sixth decade I found my feet on very tenuous ground, my mind chattering with fears and anxieties, my behaviors off-kilter, and, looking back, my denial of seeing that I needed some things to change. The four corners of my feet were not firmly balanced on my yoga mat. I had to fall, adjust, find my alignment, and learn to stand strong again.

During that challenging time, I went to an acupuncturist for the first time because I was having lasting digestive issues after a horrible infection. My stomach suddenly began to reject anything and everything I ate, and I didn’t know what was wrong with me. My primary doctor told me to try cutting out dairy. “Sometimes women your age become allergic to dairy,” she said. Really?? Well, that didn’t work. After nearly a month of experiencing pounds dropping off me like a plane dumping fuel before an emergency landing, my gastroenterologist asked me a simple question my primary doctor had overlooked: “Did you swim in a lake recently?” Yes! It was an early June swim during one of my 24 hour “me time” escapes to our (then) weekend home. A moment when I savored the pause from all that ailed me became a moment that literally punched me in the gut. Life’s inevitable dualities at work.

I was telling the acupuncturists that I finally got the antibiotic that worked, but my stomach was still not the same. Before we dove deep into the particulars, she asked me some general questions.

“How old are you?”

“Fifty,” I shared. The number has weight. My guess was she was about a decade younger, I already started judging her, thinking there is no way she can understand my experience.

 “How’s that going?”

I just met this woman, and despite my skepticism as I observed her more youthful skin, the less judgmental side of me immediately felt I could trust her (my sister’s recommendation already gave her some clout). I contemplated spewing the detailed reasons why I was in the middle of working my way through a very rough patch, but I already had a therapist. So, I just went with the easiest answer:

 “Well, those hot flashes are a fun addition to my life’s general stressors.” We both giggled.

She may have asked me one or two other questions and then she started sharing something about how we change every decade. Maybe it was a nugget of ancient Chinese philosophy or maybe it was her own thinking, but I listened intently as she walked through my life like I was reading an animated map with simple arrows depicting its progression.

She explained that our perspective changes every 10 years, starting in adolescence when we are our most inward-focused selves (a reminder to parents: when that much is changing, how can anyone be expected to see beyond their own self-centered view?). Then in our 20s we expand into the broader world, begin to define ourselves in that broader context. The 30s brings us back to inner focus, whether by creating our own family or finding those things that are most meaningful to us. In our 40s we open the door again, search for what possibilities are still out there. That I could relate to for sure. And then 50. We go back inside ourselves, more self-reflection as our joints begin to creek and gray hairs spread. She didn’t actually say it that way, but as I accepted the wisdom of her every word, I added my own internal narrative: we look in the mirror with those wrinkles looking back at us and wonder if we like who we are, maybe question if we have what we need, ponder if we are the person we want to be.

I spent the time needed to find the answers to at least those questions that mattered most and learned to let others linger as life moved on. I reclaimed my balance, re-establish my eternally optimistic “glass half full” outlook and began to feel that this other new decade, the calendar one that started with 2020 and me at 52, offered good vibes for the future in my own little world and beyond. 

Well here we are. The year 2020 is challenging us all to take a hard look inside and out. I wonder if the ancient Chinese wisdom allows for both kinds for reflection at once. For me, 2020 has sucked up some of the optimism from my glass and made me question everything. Made me more grateful too. I have to keep hoping that divisiveness, fear and anger will eventually find their way to peace, love and understanding. Change will always come. What we do with it matters most. Caught between sadness and hope, I write. And tomorrow, I vote.

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