Identity
Identity in a midlife crisis is one of the most predominant issues weighing on a person’s mind.
If you have been a full or part-time mother for over 18 years, your unique essence can quickly become lost. As your nest empties, you start to look around you and perhaps panic as the life you’ve known for so long essentially dissipates in front of your eyes. Bit by bit you have to let go, and watch as they start to take their first independent steps into an alien world. Perhaps a short summary of myself might help you understand me more.
So what is “identity” in a midlife crisis? One year before 50 I feel full of questions and find myself reflecting on where I came from and where I would like to go.
My Past
I was born in Kenya and lived in Malawi for 16 years with a group of amazing people. Unaware they were doing so, they shaped my life even though I was the quiet mouse in the corner. I travelled 3 continents and over 30 countries, experiencing our natural planet and its wonders. I had chameleons walk over my arms, hummingbirds drinking bougainvilleas’ nectar from my bedroom window, hippos and crocodiles swimming in the lake outside my holiday home, and I was lucky enough to see wildlife including insects that were just as unbelievable as they were magical. I even managed to help out at a local wildlife hospital in the UK and bottle-fed a baby tiger. I walked in nature parks that are unreachable for most people, and participated in conservation events such as renovating rocky footpaths in the Orkney Islands.
France
I lived in the UK temporarily and then moved with my husband (and then 3 children!) to an old country farmhouse in the depths of France. Eighteen years on we are now in the process of moving to a terraced village house in the Pyrénées mountains right up against the Spanish border in Catalonia. I consider myself to have been truly lucky, and I still pinch myself that I will soon be able to live in another amazing location surrounded by a national parks and a unique culture. In France we wouldn’t call ourselves rich, nor poor, but average. The middle of the road family with the beaten- up car, chaotic dog and hair-brained cats. Time has been dedicated to our children rather than our careers, and so next year will be momentous as we “lose” two children and watch them begin their own journeys in this world.
Who am I?
So who am I? I have been a child who had no TV before the age of 12, no washing machine, dishwasher and no ability to watch television before the age of 16. I didn’t have a mobile phone before my early 20s, and only had a personal computer when I was in my mid-20s. Convenience was a luxury and modern-day supermarket shopping quite a culture shock at 17. I have been a student, a girlfriend and then a wife. A colleague and a friend. I am a mother, and now… this is where my future lies like a new plate, waiting to be filled.
The climate crisis concerns me. I am a mother, a wife and a woman, but sometimes I feel that has diminished the power of my voice on the debate of our future. I feel that I should have a voice in this debate concerning the world my children are living in, and in which we will have to leave them one day.
In the past I would tidy their rooms, hear their sorrows and hug them when they were sad. I would go to work, kiss my husband and keep a home. My children are starting to fly the nest, but our planet is still their home. I have to admit with a lot of sadness and guilt that I have been asleep for all these years. Tucked up in a bubble of denial and perhaps of suffocating comfort.
I have not helped to tidy our planet, or hear its children cry for help. I have not been present to make good choices or fight for their future. However, I can try now. The aim behind the environmental challenges is to prove to myself that even normal ‘average’ people CAN change the way they live. Yes, there will be consequences and problems. There will probably be family dissent along the way, but even though each challenge might not be met or completed, the aim will always be to try. There will be no criticism. No calling out. Each effort will be rewarded. Without trying, we will never be able to change the world for the better.
So yes. It is a midlife crisis. It is in a very specific location, France. But it could be anywhere and it could be anyone. Perhaps I don’t know whether I will finish this journey or where the finishing line might be, but I know where I should start. Can a mother make a difference? Can a wife make a difference? Can a middle-aged woman make a difference? I can but try. I hope we can. I hope we can push past the culture of rules and submission, the deeply-entrenched atmosphere of conformity and peer-pressure and break out, to shout out in any way that we can.
Promise
So this is to my beautiful children. I promise to be more involved, to listen and to take part. I promise to start our environmental challenge journey together, and help our planet in any way that I can.
Maybe this challenge in its own way will help me find my way out of the nest too!
MidLife Crisis In France
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