Growing up in our middle years - The Morning Context

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  • The middle years of one’s life feel like a wide, expansive plateau. We are the parents of young children and the children of elderly parents. Months rush by leaving barely a memory of what we did with them, yet some sun-streaked evenings stay with us like bookmarks. Mornings stretch to accommodate solitude and unexpected conversations. Words linger, like shadows that stretch with the fading light.1

  • Our middle years are a time to consolidate one’s experiences and emotions.

  • He buys Claude Steiner’s book on emotional intelligence and sends me the PDF version that I keep handy on my desktop. He introduces me to the videos of Dr. Ramani and Eckhart Tolle. I reply with Gabor Mate content.

  • My elder brother lives in San Francisco and one of the joyful outcomes of the travel constraints of the pandemic years is that we have stopped postponing our need to connect with each other to the time when we will meet.

  • We are constantly surprised by how differently we remember the same time and space of our childhood home.

  • We learn to ignore the urge to offer quick solutions to fix the other’s life.

  • We know we are growing up well when we can prioritize self-care. When we slow down to come face to face with ourselves.

  • I find that the best moments of growing up are reclaiming one’s childishness. Childlike-ness, if you will.

  • Children are trusting, generous and mindful of their own boundaries. They play with full concentration and draw attention to themselves when exhausted. They are dependent, yet they are fiercely independent. The demands of socialization and school education undermine their psychological autonomy and self-esteem and replace it with doubt and insecurity.

  • I have been a responsibility addict.

  • Growing up is a time for changing of the guard. We stop blaming our parents for the things we do. We do not hold our children responsible for the choices we make. This is where the analogy of the wide plateau works for me again. I can see two generations on two sides of me and feel gratitude for the presence of both. More than anyone else, I am in charge of me.

  • Now is the time to prioritize rest, recuperation and change. For doing less and letting more happen. For silence as a strategy that helps resolve problems.

Footnotes

  1. A beautiful paragraph! ↩

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