An Unexpected Midlife Identity Crisis

It was my daughter Molly’s favorite joke when she was small.

“Knock, knock,” she’d say.

“Who’s there?” we’d answer.

“I am,” she’d reply.

“I am who?” we’d respond.

“You don’t know who you are?” she’d ask, throwing her head back and laughing heartily at the ridiculousness of this thought.

Our family has had a lot of fun with this silly question over the years. But last fall, it become more than the punch line of a knock-knock joke for me.

I’ve loved my role as a stay-at-home mom, but I always figured I’d ramp my freelance writing and editing work back up as my girls grew older and more independent. As time has gone by, however, I haven’t put a whole lot of effort into those plans.

Around Thanksgiving, though, after Lilly decided to quit ballet and my long-time job of shuttling her to dance class most days after school ended, I really started wondering what I’m going to do next. And in the process of wondering that, I also started questioning—perhaps for the first time in my adult life—who I am.

Maybe you can relate. You devote a huge portion of your energy—and possibly most of your waking minutes in those early years—to taking care of your children: feeding them, helping them with homework, driving them places, praying for them, worrying about them, trying to teach them every last one of the life and relational skills they’ll need to function as responsible human beings.

Then they reach middle school or high school and suddenly it seems as if they don’t need you anymore.

They do still need you, of course—just not as often, or as regularly, or in all the same ways. Their neediest phases, which often arrive without warning, are intense. But then they sort of dissipate, and life goes on until the next “crisis” happens.

This season of life, I’m learning, requires a different sort of mothering. It takes much more emotional energy, but not necessarily as much time.

What to do with those “extra” hours is, of course, what started this whole internal conversation in the first place. But, to repeat the punchline from Molly’s joke, it’s hard to know what to do next if you don’t know who you are.

Layer on all the complexities that come from being smack-dab in the middle of the Sandwich Generation, and this is where I’ve found myself these last many months—picking my way through some kind of midlife identity crisis that I was totally not expecting.

I’m a fairly confident person, secure in what I’m good at and also OK with what I’m not. But as I thought about projects I’ve put off and talents I’ve neglected, the doubts started creeping in.

What if I can’t do this anymore? What if it’s too late for me to make a difference with my writing? What if I don’t have anything left to say? What if I don’t even want to anymore?

The questions didn’t stop there, however. As I’ve thought about how my girls, now 13 and 16, have grown and changed, I can’t help but wonder what I could or should have done differently when they were smaller. I think about what our relationships will look like going forward. I lament all the time I’ve wasted.

Thankfully, what I’m finding is that these issues (and many more that I haven’t even mentioned) have a way of settling themselves out. It takes time, certainly. It might require counseling, or at least a few older friends who are wise, empathetic and willing to listen.

But midlife crises don’t last forever. We can choose to stay stuck in guilt, confusion and regret, or we can look ahead with a fresh appreciation of the preciousness of time and a renewed urgency about callings that are still there, waiting for us to answer them.

I’d love to end this post with an uplifting conclusion, to confidently echo Julian of Norwich’s reassurance that “all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”

I’m not there yet, but I’m closer to being there than I’ve been in many months. If you find yourself at some point along a similar path, here are some realizations that have helped me so far.

• We’re not alone in this.

Last February, at a church conference designed for women from all generations, Lilly and I sat at a table with some of her friends and their mothers. When the questions I had been pondering came up in conversation with these women, they both knew exactly what I meant when I talked about not knowing who I was in this season of life.

It was a relief just to talk about it with someone who understood.

Countless other women have faced this, figured it out somehow and gone on to lead fulfilling lives for however long they have left. We will too.

• Midlife identity crises are not without purpose.

We may not be able to see it all clearly right now. But I believe that God uses these periods of sometimes-uncomfortable reflecting to clarify what He wants us to do—and, more importantly, who He wants us to be—going forward.

• Despite the uncertainty, this is a good season.

It’s wonderful to watch our children in the process of becoming who they are, to catch glimpses and sometimes full-on pictures of how God has wired them. Their lives stretch ahead of them, full of unknowns and exciting possibilities.

In many ways, though, so do ours. And I can’t wait to see what happens next—for all of us.

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with Let’s Have Coffee, Purposeful Faith, #TellHisStory, Faith on Fire, Faith ‘n Friends and Grace & Truth.