The middle is the best part. As in Oreos, so goes life.
Nobody ever says that, they like movies about new beginnings and happy endings. Positive changes and rebirth into new phases. I mean, I'm no exception. But I've often thought a lot of marriages and relationships end because nobody got us ready for the middle.
I guess I am probably starting to look older, although I am pretty delusional about it--and not in a self-deprecating way. Like, "I think I look like I always have" way. Maybe I was too hard on myself before, maybe I'm willfully blind to the wrinkles now, I don't know. But I'm in the middle.
I never fully comprehended how quickly time passed until I had kids, and I saw their tiny little toddler selves turn into straight up tweens in what hardly seemed like years. Inhaling that awesome baby smell every day until one day--it was just gone. Their growing independence seemed like a reprieve to my sanity, but also a loss to grieve, the little person who didn't need me to dress them and bathe them and buckle their seatbelts. If they didn't need me, where did that leave me?
SO DEPRESSING. Sort of. Once you wake up and notice that is true, like Christopher Robin outgrowing Pooh, you also realize your own youth is gone. You're no longer the young mom who doesn't have a clue what she's doing. No longer the green professional who thinks every day someone will discover she's a fraud. You're like, the grown-up. And you say dumb things now, like "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed." And "brush your hair, it looks like a squirrel could be living in there." (Which is especially effective when your own hair is piled up on your head like a bird's nest because, well, all the reasons and also potentially early hot flashes.)
So once you acknowledge all of this, it's sort of a Velveteen Rabbit phenomenon. You're squishier, grayer, a little worn around the edges. You're middle-aged! But you're the same old bunny. And you've been loved a lot more than the brand new bunny at the yoga studio who can contort herself into an upside-down pretzel while you (me) can barely touch your toes without groaning. I'm straight-up joyful on the days my boobs seem bigger than my belly, and I haven't been pregnant in years. But here in the middle, there's lots more love and lots less fear about whether you'll ever be loved. And that's not so bad.
There's a line in an Indigo Girls song--and I expect all women of a certain vintage once loved the Indigo Girls, whether the currently admit it or not--about "every lesson learned a line upon your beautiful face." My lines are also on my belly, my thighs, and the weird vericose spots I have on my calves, but I know how those lines got there and how happy the causes made me, so I am cool. And yes, I am talking about my children. But also the ice cream and french fries that left their mark. And the laying out in the warm sun on the first day of summer you got. Even though of course I would never do that anymore, because cancer.
Anyhow, here's to the middle. The boring parts, the routine parts, the lack of dramatic adventure. But also the lack of uncertainty about who you are and what you want to do. Maybe some lack of excitement, as some opportunities may have gone on without you. But if there's one thing you know in the middle, it's that things change--and that could always include you.