mid-life

Some years call us to dream of the future while other years remind us to take stock and reflect. 2008 brought so many moments for reflection that I have captured some impressions—partly for me, and partly to share with two daughters who can’t yet imagine what it will be like to turn 48 and face rather surprising emotions.

Despite a thousand reasons to be thankful, there was something about grieving in the air during 2008. I felt it repeatedly and was caught off guard. Grieving implies tragic or unexpected loss. Why should there be any sense of grief in my well-cared-for life, filled with grace and countless undeserved blessings? Yet there it was, a lingering sense of sorrow, maybe even regret, maybe even despair?

After thinking hard about the significant hurdles of the year, I have realized that each of us who is given the chance to reach mid life will encounter grief and regret about who we are, and about the set of choices that brought us here. I recognized four realities this year.

I live in an aging body. Reaching 48 means realizing that I will never in this life be young again. This is a physical reality. I used to enjoy jogging for exercise. Now sore joints plague even casual running. The mirror tells me that an imagined exercise plan could never really restore fitness. Cancer treatments have also left marks on my life by marking my body. Abdominal scars tighten and disfigure. Skull radiation has left a hairless patch. Radiation to the hip has created an unnatural skin darkening. There is constant uncertainty about the origin of new twinges here and there. My body has served me well, but it is starting to wear out. Admiration for its intricacies and complexities is now tempered by my recognition that it was designed to fail—eventually. There is a sense of grief and despair in beginning to say goodbye to my own body.

I am also an aging scientist. In younger professional life we convince ourselves that we may one day be famous. As a researcher, I have kept set before me a course full of challenges intended to demonstrate professional achievement: conceiving clever laboratory experiments to understand and manipulate cellular engineering, publishing impressive articles, winning prestigious research grants in competition with my peers, traveling and gaining the recognition of other scientists. Reaching these goals has made legends of some of my colleagues in science. Yet 2008 reminded me that these professional dreams are both fleeting and elusive. Few achieve much notoriety. Those who do often pay dearly for it. In truth, my research career is unlikely to bring me fame. As I get older my ideas are seldom fresh or daring. Too often I read of the experiments of others probing questions I had once intended to study. Choices I made about where to work and how to balance career and home have set me on a course that is not likely to change. There is little chance that I will make discoveries that will inspire many others or revolutionize our ideas about life and health. There is a sense of grief and despair in saying goodbye to the career dreams of my youth.

I am getting to be an old musician too. Every young rocker joins a garage band and every garage band dreams of trading life’s certainties for a daring career on the road. We imagine living in the emotions of our audiences, traveling, playing, riding on a magic carpet of adrenaline and euphoria in our music. I’ve been playing almost all my life, and a little piece of me has always been living in that dream. What if I were to be a professional musician? Could I make it? Wouldn’t it be fantastic to work with the most talented of the talented, the best and the most creative? 2008 saw me again acting as a part-time music promoter to bring some of my favorite performing artists to our community to share with my friends and our church family. It can be painful and poignant to realize that the lives of these artists are the lives we will never have. Maybe we don’t really want those lives, and maybe this becomes more clear when we meet these guests, but there is always that other voice inside saying “What if? Why not? Is it too late?” There is a sense of grief and despair for a musician to realize that he will never be a professional and that his craft will always be shabby. I must bid farewell to the musical dreams of my youth.

I have been in love with the same person for all of my adult life. The “mid-life crisis” is most famous for the toll it takes on marriages. 2008 marked 25 years of marriage for Laura and me. In fact, we’ve enjoyed each other for all of 29 years. Our daughters are now sophomores in college and high school. We had planned a romantic getaway to Mackinac Island for our 30-year anniversary, but found ourselves accelerating our timing and taking the trip this past summer. I became aware more powerfully that I have indeed chosen to love Laura for the rest of our lives. More importantly, I have chosen to be exclusive about my love for her. I may have female friends, some of them very dear, but I have chosen Laura as my mate while we both live. The implications of this vow seemed simple on a warm July day in 1983. Now I am better coming to terms with what it means to say that I really am committed to limiting my dreams and desires to this one person. I revel in a life where my intimacies and ecstasies will forever and always be about the wife of my youth. Time and choices have closed all but one door for me. Yes, in brutal honesty I must admit that there is a sense of regret in saying goodbye to the dream of some other mysterious mate.

Grief? Despair? Regret? Yes, I guess these really are the correct words if I am to be truthful about this life and this year. Natural instincts easily lead to mid-life melancholy if there is no source of external strength or purpose. Mid life is truly a dangerous place if one lives in an existential world: one faces an ever-growing proportion of life’s dreams that will never come true.
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But wait. The sense of resignation also led to new discoveries—it was a year where grief and despair pointed to a much deeper and unthreatened joy. Mine is a life filled with external strength. I have been given what would be impossible without Him whose love for me brings purpose, meaning and significance to each choice and sacrifice.

“You know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.” Matthew 6:33-34.

“Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: he came to serve, not to be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for the many who are held hostage.” Matthew 20:27-28

“We neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.” Ephesians 2:9-10.

This body of mine was designed to last for just a flicker of time so that I could be prepared to know Him with whom I will share timelessness. I am like a caterpillar regretting the impending chrysalis—unaware of the reality of glorious wings, flowers and warm breezes to come. This body is serving me well enough.

A life in science is about building relationships with people. My career is a worthy end in itself if it allows me to portray integrity and honesty. The way that I conduct my work is more important than the work I conduct. Resiliency and enthusiasm are priceless, regardless of who is watching or noticing. This is because the One who matters is always watching and noticing.

Who am I trying to fool by thinking that I would trade all of the people and relationships of my life for the allure of the touring musician? What a crazy idea. I have been given almost all the joys of music with few of the sacrifices. I was made to offer praise, and I have been privileged to serve by making music. If I never played another note, would I have any reason for sadness or regret?

I have been blessed beyond all measure by finding in Laura the answer to my every seeking for warmth, romance and giving. She is to be the object and target for my love and affection, and for my sacrifice. The balance of my life is not about what some other woman might have given to me—it is about what more I can give to the wife of my youth.

Yes, 2008 has taught me that grief and despair can be found even in the most blessed of lives. These emotions are natural and could easily overwhelm me at mid life. Yet if I focus on the many things I will never be, I deny focus on the purposes for which I have been created. Beyond grief, despair and regret is a rich and unfathomable joy. It reminds me that true satisfaction is found in doing and being those things for which I was designed. My daughters, when you find yourselves in my place, and that day will come so very soon, remember that you were not made for yourselves, but for Him.


11.08