A love letter and a rant...that's in alignment with midlife, alrighty.

Midlife is a ride, that’s for sure!!! The what the hell is happening season—when all the warning signs from previous generations were there and still, somehow, we’re scratching our heads.

If we’re lucky, we’re tending to parents who are getting older while our children are growing up and, almost without warning, growing away. They’re leaving home, leaving childhood. After decades of parenting, life is rearranging itself in ways we didn’t really plan for and didn’t practice. The noise softens. The roles we’ve held so tightly loosen. Time suddenly feels different—quieter, faster, more fragile. We are learning who we are in the spaces where caretaking once lived.

I find myself wishing I had appreciated my youth more. My fantastic energy level has now turned into napping almost daily at 3pm. My young skin, so taut, has turned into a weird loose crepiness. My optimism was spot on—but then again, there was no Trump. But of course, we only know what we know when we know it. Back then, I didn’t know I should savor it. I was too busy surviving, striving, proving. Youth is wasted on the young, and wisdom shows up late to the party with reading glasses, saggy skin, achy hips, and low levels of estrogen.

And yet—there is so much beauty here too. I am witnessing my children become semi-self-sufficient, and it’s truly such a heartwarming experience to see them navigate the world in young adulthood.

Friendships have been my life preservers—steady hands when I was going under, mirrors when I was lost, witnesses to the becoming. I have been blessed with women who know how to hold me, limbs intertwined on a sectional sofa while I fall apart, who let the tears run their course, who stay long enough for the laughter to return… all of us knowing we are just doing the best we can. The inner circle of women in my life are so powerful—not the kind of power that we Americans are used to, the kind that needs to perform or declare itself—but a quiet power, earned from resilience, tenderness, and truth. They have been broken open by life—by grief, by survival, by joys and losses. Women who show up for each other and choose presence, depth, and love… never pretending to hold it all together. Mercy, they are messy and stunningly beautiful.

This midlife stage has me unraveling too—slowly, awkwardly, and with far more backtracking than I’d like to admit. I’m getting more comfortable in this aging skin, even as it betrays me daily with new lines, so many chin hairs, and a sudden need for better lighting and a 10x mirror. These days I’m aiming for honest over impressive. I’m softer and less reactive—but let’s be clear, this evolution has come with a lot of crying and so much tapping. (Therapy once again… if you’ve done EMDR, you know exactly what I mean.)

Yoga has been my steady through all of this. What began as a very physical practice—stretching, flowing, pushing, sweating, mastering poses (who on God’s green earth would ever let their knee go beyond their toes???… gasp)—has morphed into something else entirely. Now it’s about liberation from all the patterns that have kept me stuck. It’s about connection to something so much greater than myself. It’s about seeing my ways and my roles in my relationships—the good, the bad, and the ugly. The practice is a daily undoing, a coming back home to the understanding that we are all connected and that we belong to each other.

We are living in a world that feels so loud, divided, and frayed at the edges. Racism. Fear. Separateness. An underlying sense of utter exhaustion and outrage. It’s overwhelming to witness—and even harder to explain to my children why my generation has left this for them to clean up. I don’t want to leave behind more fear. More silence. More “that’s just the way it is.”

I want more for them and for us. I want connection over convenience—I’m so guilty of this. Amazon at my door every week. I want brave conversations, bordered by open-mindedness and curiosity, instead of polite avoidance. I want to leave a legacy that says we tried to do better.

Midlife isn’t a crisis; it feels like the Universe asking, “Is this really who you want to be?” It’s eye-opening—a reckoning of sorts. It’s tender and terrifying and strangely hilarious.

So here I am—learning, failing, thriving, seeking, avoiding, hoping, practicing, and praying in my way. I want a world that feels less broken. I want to do better for our children. I want more love and less hate.

I am exhausted, yet hopeful, knowing that we are better than this - much like a lotus flower rising from the muck and murky darkness, only to emerge as beautifully as it does.