The Miracle Question

Jackie is a 44 year old woman who has worked as a paralegal in a large, downtown firm for over 20 years. She has two teenaged children and a supportive spouse. For a couple of years she’s been batting around the idea of doing something different in her career. It’s not that she dislikes her job. She still enjoys the satisfaction she gains from helping clients negotiate the legal system and she loves the camaraderie and support she finds with her co-workers.

Comfortable in My Own Skin

I was listening to a radio interview with Jane Fonda the other day. She was talking about some of the changes she has experienced as she’s grown older. The one that stuck with me was this. She said that in her earlier years whenever she woke to a new day her first several thoughts were all negative.

Your Body WILL change - sorry about that!

Once you hit fifty, watch out! Everything starts to go.

How many times have you heard this and thought, not me! I exercise, take care of myself, don’t smoke. My body won’t betray me. I will be the exception.

I remember being in my early forties, in the hale of good health and watching with some irritation as one thing after another started bringing down my husband, ten years my senior. First it was his heart (a frightening arrhythmia) then his hip (a 3 year nightmare waiting for a steel replacement), his eyes (getting worse), both knees (barely hanging on as we speak), etc., etc.

Won’t happen to me, I continued to tell myself. No way.

And then I met the personal trainer from hell who bullied me into performing exercises meant for a twenty year old hard body, not a fifty year old, menopausal noodle body. And everything went to hell. A frozen shoulder followed by bursitis in both elbows and a pinched nerve between L4 and L5 that can cause a screaming back spasm if I merely twist the wrong way. Plantar fasciitis in one foot, bursitis developing in one hip and the resulting lack of exercise causing the only muscle tissue I have left to soften and spread, like glutinous margarine left in the sun.

I am now relegated to mincing my way through the new Jane Fonda fitness videos designed for older people and I just can’t believe it. 

How did this happen to me?

Limitations placed on us by our aging bodies seems to be the new reality, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves that it will not happen to us.

Am I Having a MidLife Crisis?

Look up the word midlife crisis and you will often see the following definition: A period of dramatic self-doubt during the middle years of life (typically aged 45 – 55) often brought on by some major upheaval such as divorce, bereavement, redundancy, etc.  

    The result may be a need to make core changes to daily life in areas such as marriage, career, appearance, etc. There might be a sense of discontent with your lifestyle or the people that have provided happiness for many years.  Perhaps you are feeling adventurous and wanting to do something completely different or have begun questioning the meaning of life.